How much would a Miami title change the ACC's narrative and business deals?

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How much could a Miami title change the ACC narrative?

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The Miami Hurricanes and Indiana Hoosiers face off in the College Football Playoff National Championship tonight (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, with megacasts across a variety of ESPN platforms), and that's quite an unexpected matchup. While Indiana entered the playoff as the top seed thanks to their undefeated season and Big Ten championship, the Hoosiers were +10,000 (or 100/1) to win it all at BetMGM preseason (versus Miami's +3,000), which would make the Hoosiers (currently 7.5-point favorites) the team with the longest preseason odds to claim a title going back to 2001 (as far as SportsOddsHistory.com tracks). Meanwhile, while the 10th-seeded Hurricanes looked strong early this year, they were a controversial inclusion in the field.

As already discussed here in a premium post last week, this matchup in general shows increased room at the top of CFB regardless of who wins. But while an Indiana win would widen the discussion about who gets to be a power in the Big Ten, and increase the conversation on unconventional powerhouse schools, it would only enhance the talking point of the true "Big Two" conferences of the Big Ten (four CFP-era titles in five championship appearances across 12 years if the Hoosiers win, two more losing appearances if you count the losses taken by Oregon and Washington in the title game while they were in the Pac-12) and the SEC (six titles in 10 appearances). Meanwhile, a Miami win would be the ACC's third in five appearances, and would come at a time when many have all but written off that conference. But how much of a business impact would that actually have?

One of the points of this newsletter is to discuss sports business as business, not as a series of wins and losses. I remain an avowed neutral, something incredibly rare in the sports media world these days (you can read my longer rationale here, but to sum up, I'm fine with others' fandoms, but think I can bring some different perspective by not particularly rooting for anyone), and I think that also helps me look at sports business as business and not as a game with an immediate box score. This particularly comes up in ratings coverage; as I've noted on many previous occasions, the "win/loss" element many bring to ratings discussion sometimes feels more sports than business, as an individual up or down rating (even for a season or a championship game) is unlikely to really impact a league or sport's TV deal given how far those are signed in advance (although there certainly are impacts for the game broadcasters, especially in terms of any makegood ads they have to provide to compensate for low ratings or in terms of their ability to sell future games to advertisers following strong ratings). And, similarly, one title game result is unlikely to directly impact a league's TV deal.

That's especially true considering that the ACC's rights are currently with ESPN through 2036 thanks to a 2016 deal. (There is reportedly an unusual option ESPN could use to exit after 2027, but they'd likely only do that if there's a real conference collapse). Thus, while there's a CFP payout of $116 million to the ACC from the Hurricanes making it this far (interestingly, there's no bonus for winning), there aren't many immediate TV financial rewards. And all the previous logic of "one title game is unlikely to materially impact a league's finances" holds to some extent. However, there are a few particular elements with the ACC where a certain on-field result here (a Miami win) might help the business case more than we normally see.

• National discussion: College football's unusual structural setup with so many different leagues (also key to the chaotic coaching moves) means that there is much more going on with who gets talked about than in one league with several divisions. No one's seriously arguing that media hype for a NFL division matters much (and part of that is a clearer, on-field-only playoff selection process), although the Houston Texans might have a case for scheduling bones to pick. But in a sport where so much does still depend on voted rankings, national discussion (including on pregame shows such as ESPN's College GameDay and Fox's Big Noon Kickoff, on midweek and weekend studio programming, on radio, and more) has an impact on what teams are seen as contenders, and that does impact who gets to the playoff. Miami's run here certainly helps the ACC case even if they lose, especially as many had written the conference off with the recent decline of Clemson (their previous only title game participant in the CFP era). But a win would be longer-remembered, and would boost the conference overall in that national discussion going into next season and beyond.
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• Scheduling slots: This is somewhat of an outgrowth of that national discussion point, but it's one that especially matters for the ACC given their contract with ESPN. Their games are almost all (excluding the Raycom package that's now licensed to TNT) going to be on ESPN networks, but which network and which slot is often at the discretion of that broadcaster. Serious national discussion of the ACC improves the slots the conference's games get. And a national title would unquestionably help there.
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• Diminishing poaching/leaving conversations: This is a conference that recently saw several schools (especially Florida State and Clemson) sue it, leading to a March 2025 settlement that implemented a few of the previously-discussed radical ratings-based revenue proposals. It's a conference that's seen a lot of discussion of its time being up. This Miami run certainly helps reduce that, but a title would do even more there. If the Hurricanes can indeed not just get into this field (despite not even making the conference title game) from the ACC, but win it all, that makes it much harder to convince conference schools to leave. And this might be the really critical impact of a Miami win, if one happens; at the moment, it looks far less likely than it did relatively recently that the ACC will implode soon, but a title would definitely minimize those conversations even more. We'll see if that happens.