Currently, ESPN has the ACC Football rights. But unless they work a deal to extend that contract by the end of April; the ACC may go shopping. The current leading candidate for getting the ACC Football TV Contract is the NFL Network.
Yup, the NFL Network, Channel 212 on Direct TV, Channel 154 on Dish Network and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, not available on Tim Warner Cable.
I don’t know if we want sweat this or not.
This would be a very smart move on the NFL network’s part and a dumb oversight by ESPN to let this happen. The ACC is not the SEC in football but it does cover an area of the country that is very loyal to its football veiwership. ESPN does not want to lose parts of its viewers attention in metro areas of Boston, Baltimore/DC, NC/SC, Atlanta, upper/lower Fla markets loyal to FSU and Miami. When you consider that the ACC has put as many if not more players into the NFL than even the SEC over the past 10 years, then this does not appear out of reach for the NFL network.
Plus this is the exact type of move that ESPN made 20 years or so ago when they brought the TV rights to the Duke/Carolina basketball game which was a key factor in forcing cable networks to add ESPN. Thus, this would be a small price to pay for a cash rich organization such as the NFL to force the networks to add the NFL network. Plus this would add major stress to the ESPN and NFL relationship that even the dominate ESPN cannot overlook.