UNC to SEC realignment isn’t happening anytime soon. With or without Belichick, the Tar Heels have hurdles to clear

Many people recently talked about Northern Caroline heels, not just because of the media circus that Bill Belichick attracted when he arrived in a Hilton hotel in Charlotte last week for the ACC football media.

There was a handful of stories published last week on the Tar Heels and the one that attracted the most attention was a report from the interior of Caroline, the incredibly trendy and very source 247sport site that covers the Tar Heels, which said that, according to sources, “the dry is where the Tar Heels aim.”

And this report was aggregated from sea to sea and served as fodder for a wave of podcasts and sports radio programs. On one of these emissions, there was even speculation on a “handshake” agreement between UNC and the dry, and Virginia and Big Ten. And that continued to feed the aggregation machine while the speaking season continues in university football.

But, with all the respect due to the people of Inside Carolina, it is not really a new one.

Of course, the North Carolina is positioned to be recovered by the dry, one of the two richest conferences in competition currently in university athletics. People with real power at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill said so much in the file. One of them is Dave Boliek, a former member of the UNC board of directors who was elected state auditor last year. Before taking office and when he was still used on the bot, Boliek said things like this:

“We cannot sit down and cross our fingers and pray for money from heaven and think that everything is going to” work “. We must actively continue what is in the best interest of Carolina Athletics … I plead (UNC to join a higher income league).

In case you wonder why the UNC wants to turn their back on the ACC – a conference which he helped to find in a room filled with smoke in Greensboro in 1953 – It was because of these cents that Boliek referenced. The answer to all your questions is money. For the 2023-24 season, the SEC has distributed $ 52.5 million in revenue – which largely comes from media rights agreements pulled by football – by school. The ACC, meanwhile, distributed $ 45 million per school the same year. This gap is about to develop wider while the 10-year Disney agreement for $ 3 billion began at the start of the 2024-25 academic year.

To put itself in the position of the dry – or the other rich conference, the Big Ten – was a reason why the North Carolina also ponted money for Belichick. Media rights agreements are motivated by football and Tar Heels have been nothing better than Mediocre, or Triangle Good, for 45 years. Will the payment of a former Super Bowl, 73-year-old Super Bowl football coach, be $ 10 million a year will this problem are and make Tar Heals more attractive for one of the big leagues? This is exactly what people in power in Chapel Hill hope.

“Coach Belichick will help us take this next jump,” Jennifer Lloyd, a member of the board of directors, told a group of journalists during his introductory press conference in December, long before the world was in love with his 24 -year -old girlfriend. “Why the University of North Carolina in a JV level?” We should not be JV in everything we do, never … the fact that we accepted a place relegated to football was absolutely horrible for most of us, and it is really (why) this central group (I worked) so hard to try to try to inspire us to get up from the table.

Jim Dedmon-Imagn images

We also know that, while Clemson and Florida State were chasing the AC to get rid of what we once thought was an iron iron subsidy, North Carolina was quietly exploring an exit plan. According to a report by The Athletic in February, the Tar Heels spent more than $ 600,000 in legal costs on “Carolina Blue Matter” – a code name for the exploration of the alumni of the former of the UNC conference. The work on this project began shortly after Texas and Oklahoma announced that they were moving to the dry.

“We have a landing point if things explode,” the former administrator Chuck Duckett wrote to President John Preyer in an e-mail obtained by athletics. “Let FSU and Clemson pay the lawyers and see what’s going on. We all learn via their expenses. ”

Much of the money spent for Carolina Blue Matter went to Wasserman, according to a recent report by The News & Observer. This means, a little strangely, Wasserman helped North Carolina to a potential outing plan at the same time as he helped the ACC to improve her image.

These proceedings between Clemson and Florida State and the ACC were settled earlier this year. Some key factors have emerged from the settlement agreement, but no more important than the sliding scale for exit costs, if one of the 17 ACC members (and 18th in Notre-Dame in all sports, but football) decided to bolt. This year, these exit costs are a Doozy at around $ 165 million. But in 2030, it fell up to $ 75 million and stayed at this figure until 2036. Although it is still expensive, it is a much more manageable amount.

And UNC already explores creative means to generate more income according to a recent history of the Assembly, such as the denomination rights of the Dean Smith Center and advertising fixes on jerseys. In addition, the ACC is now in an era of a eat-time, when the conference gives more income to schools that are successful in playoffs in male and female football and basketball, and schools that draw the most viewers of football and male basketball.

Thus, Clemson, Florida State and the North Carolina do not leave the ACC to soon. But in 2030? Of course, we should be on the conference realignment watch.

But it’s five years old. And consider how the university sports landscape has changed over the past five years. In 2020, the transfer portal was relatively new, we did not really talk about Nile or the house regulations, and the realignment of the conference had not completely taken off. The CAP-12 was still in life and in full swing, the rivalry of the Red River was still in the Big 12, and the playoffs of university football were only four teams. Women’s university basketball was about to take off, but the NCAA still did not share the brand March Madness and ESPN still did not broadcast every match of the women’s tournament on its linear channels. Five years ago, we did not have streaming games on Peacock or Paramount + or HBO Max. Since 2020, observation habits have changed. Will TV money be the same in 2030?

Image photo Eakin Howard / Getty

As we have learned, many can move in half a decennia in university sports. We should not guarantee the dry as the destination of the UNC when there is so unknown. In addition to discussions on a European super football league to come to university football, a commissioner – although with a great power of American Tim Pernetti – talks about the consolidation of the rights of the media of university football. As improbable as it may seem, if it materializes, then what would be the advantage of changing the conferences?

Aside from all this uncertainty, the agreement of the dry with Disney takes place until 2034. Greg Sankey can bring ESPN back to the table and renegotiate four years earlier? Is North Carolina sufficient to arouse renegotiation? Maybe.

Many sports editors and speaking chiefs have said in recent years that each time the next conference realignment cycle occurs, North Carolina is the most attractive potential addition to the dry or big ten outside of Notre Dame. Although they have no success in football, these two leagues prefer to have the Tar Heels on Clemson or Florida State. There are a few reasons why: its recognizable national brand (thank you, Michael Jordan), its academic prestige, its success in athletics that are not football, and because it is the flagship university of an increasing state that ranks in the top 10 of the population – and that Big Ten and Dry have no imprint.

The most interesting treat of the inside Carolina report may have been that the Chancellor of the UNC, Lee Roberts, discreetly “played a key role by helping to finalize the ACC settlement agreement with Clemson and Florida State”. This is aligned with the motivations that the UNC has long telegraph and essentially echoes what Duckett said to preyy: let’s work in the shadows and learn while Clemson and Florida State make a very public mess.

Again, the North Carolina clearly explains its intentions and its plans for some time, it’s just done quietly. The Tar Heels want more money and more prestige. And if things do not change over the next five years, it will mean that they will want to go to another conference.

The obstacles in 2030 according to which the Tar Heels approach will be philosophical and moral. Is the North Carolina willing to drive a nail into the ACC coffin, a league that he helped to create and become one of the Power 4 conferences? Are the Tar Heels ready to turn their back on historical rivalries and traditions of several decades with the neighbors of tobacco, Duke and NC State?

It should be noted that the Tar Heels may not even be able to face the second question by themselves. In February 2024, the Council of Governors of the UNC System (this is the direct integrity of the public universities of North Carolina, and its members are appointed by the state legislature, which currently has a republican majority) adopted a policy which obliges each member school to obtain the approval of the Board of Directors and the Chairman of the UNC Peter Hans system before changing sports conferences. So, will the Council of Governors allow the UNC to leave little brother NC State in a potential realignment decision? Potentially. Hans is a graduate of the UNC-Chapel Hill, regardless of the prey and the Ire board of directors during the search for a new football coach who ended with the hiring of UNC Belichick.

Will the North Carolina be found in the dry in the 2030s? Maybe. But it is far from concluded. Many can change by then. And nothing in sport in the Northern Caroline triangle occurs in a vacuum.