Drew Weatherford says Florida State would 'love to stay' in ACC under one condition
Former Florida State quarterback Drew Weatherford said Seminoles would love to stay in the ACC under one condition: more competitiveness.
Weatherford’s been outspoken about Florida State eyeing a way to get out of the ACC. Basically, it was a matter of when, not if.
Overall, Weatherford is worried about the future of the ACC, especially if Florida State is still here over 10 years from now.
“We would love to stay in the ACC if the ACC can create an environment where we can be competitive,” Weatherford said on Sirius XM ACC Radio. “That is the ideal scenario for everybody, right? I mean that is the truth, is that we would love that. We don’t see a pathway there. Even if you add those two schools and you renegotiate a contract, which ESPN is not going to do until 2036. They don’t need to. They have all of us on the cheap, all of us. So they’re not going to renegotiate until 2036.”
Florida State was one of the teams to study the Grant of Rights deal earlier this summer to explore how unbreakable the contract really is.
“And the question I think we should be asking ourselves is, what do all these ACC schools look like, in 13 years,” Weatherford said. “With the dynamics that I just described, I mean, all these programs having so much more money than us, that’s what I’m worried about.
“How relevant is FSU? How relevant is Clemson? How relevant is North Carolina? Not just in football either right? In all these sports because they will all be impacted. So I worry about that.”
As Weatherford puts it, Florida State isn’t necessarily ashamed of its ACC branding. The Seminoles would stay if they could, under better circumstances.
“If I felt like we could bolt on a few other universities to the ACC and get a media deal that was competitive then yeah, let’s do that,” Weatherford said. “Let’s make it the Super Three. But it doesn’t, from what my understanding of the contract which I’ve spent quite a bit of time learning about and just the schools that are available, that opportunity doesn’t really exist right now.”
The ACC signed its grant of rights in 2013 and updated it in 2016 when the ACC Network came about, extending the deal through 2036. But in the last few years, three other Power Five conferences — the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 — all came to new media rights deals and went through rounds of realignment. The SEC is bringing in Oklahoma and Texas while the Big Ten added USC and UCLA. The Big 12 is now adding four schools this year and will bring in Colorado when Texas and Oklahoma leave in 2024.
Those media rights deals have bigger payouts than the ACC. The Big Ten’s record-breaking deal is worth $7 billion over seven years and the Big 12 agreed to a new, $2.28 billion contract last year. The SEC’s deal is worth more than $300 million per season, according to the Sports Business Journal.