For all the chaos and angst regarding the football and basketball teams with players coming and going, it somehow makes sense that for the first time in more than ten years there is a calm — nay, giddiness — over how positive things are for Pitt athletics as a whole now that the membership in the ACC is weeks away. There’s no worrying over rumors of new expansiopocolypse. There’s no concerns about being insanely behind every other conference in terms of money and media exposure. There’s actual confidence in the conference structure and the commissioner actually knowing what he is doing and not trying to serve two masters.

The ACC meetings are taking place, and the buzzword is stability.

As the league’s athletic directors gathered Monday for their annual meetings, one item not on the agenda was the prospect of future conference realignment. That seemingly persistent worry was put to bed last month when the ACC members agreed to a grant of media rights that would appear to lock in the conference membership through 2027.

“In the room, we always felt good, but then you go outside the room and no one else seemed to feel good,” Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson said. “There was always this undercurrent that there was something else going on. I think what [the grant of rights] did was kind of sent a message to everybody that we’re in this and this is the way it’s going to be.”

Whereas last year was about trying to maintain the status quo, this year’s meetings will be about how the league can move forward.

Last year, Pitt was just happy to be there. This year, they are an actual participant.

Pederson also said that, while he was here last year, the meetings didn’t provide the same sort of immediacy they do now. Last year, Pederson could be a part of big picture ACC discussions (bowl tie-ins, TV rights, realignment, etc.) but not really in terms of smaller stuff like officiating and rules changes (where Pitt still had one more year in the Big East). This year, it’s all ACC everything for Pitt, which will officially join the conference July 1.

“Instead of sitting in there listening to everything about a year from now, everything is about this fall and who we’re playing and what we’re doing,” he said. “That’s the reality of it. We’ve been planning and so forth but all of a sudden instead of being on the edge of the discussion, you’re in the discussion in terms of how everything affects you going forward, and that’s important.”

In light of recent announcements by the SEC and ESPN on an SEC Network, questions of what is going to happen with an ACC channel were at the forefront.

“We don’t want to let any grass grow, and I don’t think ESPN does either,” said Swofford, who updated conference athletic directors Monday on the viability of the proposed ACC Network.

A major part of the business being conducted this week at the ACC spring meetings involves discussions aimed at building that network. Swofford said the conference — now that it is growing westward from the Atlantic Ocean and northward with the additions of Pitt and Syracuse — is well-positioned to undertake many ventures.

“Everything is very healthy from an exposure standpoint,” he said. “I don’t know if anybody has any greater exposure. With the grant of (media) rights agreement, that enhances a lot of things for us going forward.”

…

Swofford said the 15 schools will give the ACC footprint a population of about 107 million, the largest of any conference.

“By 2030,” he said, “over 50 percent of the population of the U.S. will be in the ACC footprint.”

Swofford put the timetable for an ACC network on a similar planning clock as the SEC, which started talking about its network about two years ago and is a year from fruition. “Something of that nature is probably realistic for us in terms of that decision being made,” he said.

The exploration of an ACC Network started back in January. Given the rights to ACC media are held by ESPN, there really was/is no doubt about who their broadcast partner would/will be in such a venture. It is no coincidence that after the exploration of the ACC Network began, things began to fall into place for a Grant of Rights in the ACC. There’s no way ESPN — or any broadcast partner — would agree to back an ACC Network without hard guarantees of conference stability.

The revenue potential and growth of a conference network in the medium to long-term is still superior to a deal where a school would control only their tier 3 TV rights. Controlling tier 3 rights might give you a nice bump initially and ego boost to say you control them, but they are going to be constrained by the interest limited to not far beyond the state where the school is located (right, Texas?). A conference network, though, has much broader appeal and growth potential.

The issue, as always, is getting it picked up by various distributors. As the B1G Network learned. As the Longhorn Channel and Pac-12 Network are learning. As even the SEC will learn. It isn’t as simple as snapping fingers to get the cable and satellite and FIOS companies to agree to carry the channel. Heck, it has taken the NFL Network years to start to get near the penetration it wanted. But — and once more the B1G is the example — once they do get the distribution, the money really does roll. The B1G is pushing out bigger money than ever because it has had years to get itself distributed. That’s why the revenue distribution is so high. Years to push it out onto markets. Years of negotiations. Years of being mocked because it wasn’t being distributed as widely right away.

It will happen. It will also take time.

As much as everyone wants to predict the bursting of the bubble for what media companies will pay for live sports, it does not appear to be happening anytime soon. The Sports Business Journal had a good article explaining why rights fees aren’t going to pop anytime soon.

Today, the same situation is happening in Los Angeles, where Time Warner Cable’s recent Dodgers deal — $8 billion over 25 years — has brought out the same speculation. How can sports rights go any higher?

Network and league executives privately say that we are still nowhere close to a rights ceiling, and they believe rights fees will continue to climb for the foreseeable future. Taking a look at the TV market as a whole, it’s difficult to argue with them.

Cord cutting for just online streaming and subscription services are still very minor. They get a lot of attention, but they are only a small percentage. Sadly, by the time they get to a point where there might be an impact, we’ll probably be dealing with metering and throttling for streams.

The only thing that could do it is if Congress actually passed McCain’s bill to unbundle channels and other consumer friendly things. Unfortunately, the odds of that happening are slim and none. Too much money and too many lobbyists that would line up against it. And even if it passed and was signed, you can bet there would be a major court battle to tie it up for more years.

But now that there is stability that networks can feel confident will last, the ACC Network will come together and be rolled out in the next couple of years. And then it will be the painful process of getting the distribution.