It’s ACC Kickoff (i.e., ACC Football Media Days), so what better day to try and get back to the blog.

My unannounced summer hiatus is winding down. Some time is opening up to write. The batteries are recharged a bit and I feel like getting some tabs cleared.

There’s no burning topic for the Media Days. There’s stuff, but there’s no underlying drama or angst.

There are some rule changes in kickoffs, transfers and redshirts that coaches will be asked to “talk about.”

The main topic, though, will be, “How’s the ACC Network coming along, Commissioner Swofford?”

Swofford in his opening remarks did not shy away from the topic, as it is just a little more then a year until it launches.

The new network logo was revealed.

I mean, it’s fine. It uses the ACC Style image, and it isn’t a copy of the SEC Network logo.

The ACC Network is a source of cautious excitement and fear for fans of ACC teams.

The Big Ten has massive money coming from their network.

The University of Michigan released their athletic budget this week and within it was the revelation of just how much the school received from their most recent Big Ten conference revenue distribution.

After receiving $36 million in 2017, Michigan received a $51.1 million payout in 2018 from the conference largely thanks to a huge rights deal with ESPN and Foxand the success of the Big Ten Network. The number will increase to $52.1 million for the 2019 fiscal year.

Even the SEC is at only $40 million. The headstart the Big Ten had on everyone is the key thing. Have to give credit to their conference leadership in that respect. They took a big gamble and was mocked quite a bit early on, but no one is making jokes about them now.

As soon as the ACC launches next year, it won’t rocket them to SEC levels. It will almost certainly put the ACC in the middle of the Power 5 conferences with TV revenue.

It’s going to be almost impossible for the ACC to close the gap on the SEC and Big Ten, both of which had a considerable head start on their own (profitable) networks, but the ACC is counting on network revenue – which even in its least optimistic projections should be at least $10 million per school per year, once the network is up and running – to move it past the Pac-12 and even with the Big 12.

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The ACC distributed an average of $26.6 million per school in 2017, with total revenue up 12 percent and Notre Dame receiving a fraction of that. The Pac-12 was at $31.5 million in its most recent financial statements, the Big 12 at an estimated $40 million (its official figure of $36.5 million doesn’t include some tertiary media rights, including Texas’ Longhorn Network) and the SEC at $40.9 million, while the Big Ten is expected to exceed $50 million.

The revenue shares last year in the ACC are acceptable in my mind as last year and this are essentially the final years for the old deal and before the ACCN. Yes, there’s a lot of pressure on the ACCN to launch big. Just as there was on the SEC Network. There’s more angst now, as there is more cord-cutting and tiers on cable/satellite are changing in the face of such pressure.

This article, though lays out how even cord-cutters are paying for sports (and in some cases whether they want to or not).

Sling TV, YouTube TV, DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue and FuboTV have a mostly homogenous roster of channels in various tiers. One service might have a channel (national or local) the other doesn’t have and vice versa. Cloud-based DVR is becoming standard. The user interfaces within each app ultimately come down to personal preference.

Each service has also hiked up prices in recent months. Netflix increased their two-screen subscription plan to $10.99 a month. Hulu, which includes a live TV option, can run up to $43.99 a month. When you throw in decent fiber internet access (which I’d consider more of a utility at this point, like water and electricity), the cost savings from ditching your old bundle start to deteriorate.

Turns out these cord-cutting solutions suffer the same issues that caused your old cable and satellite bills to inflate. Creating and providing content, especially live sports, is expensive. ESPN has compensated for the loss of overall subscriptions and the revenue associated with it the best way they can by rearranging its carriage agreements, charging upwards of $10 per subscriber for the combination of ESPN and ESPN2. Those costs get passed down to the OTT operators, which eventually get passed down to the consumers who pay for the OTT service.

As if the marketplace isn’t fractured enough, streaming services boasting cheaper monthly rates by stripping all sports programming are now available. Philo, offering a basic, 40-channel lineup for $16 a month, launched in late 2017. Comcast’s Xfinity Instant TV is an $18-a-month service available only to Comcast broadband customers. AT&T followed with a competing service this summer dubbed Watch TV, which is available as part of an unlimited wireless plan or as a $15-a-month standalone app.

He makes the point that we may be heading to a European model with regards to soccer. If you want that content, you will have to pay for it separately.

Sports leagues and conferences aren’t giving any of this money back. I’ve long argued American sports fans will mirror how E

uropean sports fans pay high premiums to watch soccer. My hunch only gets stronger thanks to the oncoming rush of more a la carte options such as ESPN+, NBC’s Premiere League Pass and Turner’s UEFA Champions League extras. So how much cash are you willing to lay down to get all the sports you want? Some fans are going to prioritize. Maybe they’ll be comfortable missing one or two games of their favorite school that end up on the ACC Network each season.

I mean, I know I’m waiting for carriage deals for the ACCN to be announced on carriers in my area. As soon as it happens, it determines whether I switch or not.

Just remember, the ACC’s media deal is so, so much better then what the PAC-12 has.

The beginning of one of the biggest Pac-12 football games of last season was preempted by a NASCAR truck race. When it became apparent the Lucas Oil 150 was going to run long, FS1 delayed the Stanford-Washington game by 15 minutes to 10:45 p.m. ET.

It wasn’t enough of a delay. Even though the game was shifted to little-seen FS2 and the Fox Sports app, thanks to the trucks — and Fox’s commitment to them — most viewers missed the entire first quarter.

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Of course, the Pac-12 spun that $509 million payout as the largest in its history. And while that’s true, it’s not how Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson saw it.

“The gap between us and the other [leagues] continues to grow,” he said. “We’ll be competitively disadvantaged even moreso. … That’s real money in terms of being able to compete, support facilities, support coaches and support programs.”

The sky is not falling out West but cracks are beginning to appear in a once-solid foundation. First, there are those vocal critics. Christ, Anderson and new Washington State president Kirk Schulz have weighed in.

“This is a concern of the Pac-12 presidents, and I can tell you it’s a large discussion point with meetings with the commissioner at every single meeting,” Schulz said. “… The Pac-12 schools have got to be competitive with the ACC, the SEC and the Big Ten and Big 12, and we’re falling behind.”

And the PAC-12’s deal goes until 2023