There was no clock dangling over Heather Lyke’s head as she spoke Wednesday, counting down the number of days remaining until the ACC Network formally launches, because there was no need for one. At this point, she’s well aware of it.
Seventy-eight days.
It’s a date that rapidly approaches, one almost certain to arrive in what feels like a flash. For that reason and many, many others, Lyke, the Pitt athletic director, and others in the conference are doing everything they can to prepare for its impending debut, an event that’s hotly anticipated for the league, but not without some questions.
Lyke spent part of her morning Wednesday making radio appearances and meeting with reporters, her message tinged with what amounted to a call to arms — if your cable company doesn’t offer the ACC Network, don’t just call them to ask for it, but demand it (a plea also stated on the network’s website).
With the ESPN-partnered network set to launch on Aug. 22, there’s an urgency and immediacy to how conference and school officials work in advance of that looming date, especially with a degree of uncertainty still attached to it. In the Pittsburgh area, Xfinity (formerly Comcast) and Dish Network don’t have the ACC Network as a part of their lineups, even as others like DirecTV, Verizon Fios and Google Fiber, among others, do.
It’s something Lyke and other administrators hope can be changed with enough of a push from fans and customers.
“ESPN, they’re doing a terrific job, but it will be very intense between now and Aug. 22 to see which cable companies pick it up,” Lyke said. “We feel like we’re in a really good position.”
The ACC’s current predicament isn’t exactly uncommon. Lyke noted that the Big Ten Network — the standard-bearer of conference-centric channels that has helped make the Big Ten, by far, the most profitable league in college athletics — wasn’t picked up by Comcast until 18 months after it had launched in 2007 (the two sides also settled a carriage dispute last September). The Pac-12 Network has encountered distribution issues, stemming partially from the fact it doesn’t have ESPN or Fox as a partner, something Lyke believes gives the ACC a measure of leverage in negotiations with cable providers.
The fact those questions still exist for the time being makes it difficult to accurately predict just how valuable the network may be to the conference and its members in the coming years.
“Right now, it’s dependent on distribution,” Lyke said. “Certain cable companies will drive that number significantly. It’s just a matter of who signs on and at what point.”
If all goes as planned, the network will help close — and, in other cases, eliminate — the financial gap between the ACC and the other major conferences in college athletics. According to tax returns from the 2017-18 fiscal year, the ACC paid its schools an average of $29.5 million, tied with the Pac-12 for last among the Power Five, with the Big 12 at $34.7 million, the SEC at $43.7 million and the Big Ten at $54 million.
Two of the three leagues ahead of it have networks — the Big Ten and SEC Networks will turn 12 and 5 years old, respectively, in August — something that will catch the ACC up to speed.
“We’re behind, frankly, at the ACC up until this point,” Lyke said. “Obviously, we’re going to catch up pretty quickly with a successful launch. It gives our teams an unbelievable platform to showcase what they’re about. It gives us a chance to tell the stories of who our kids are and who our coaches are in a much more transparent way.”
While launching a linear television network in 2019, when the viewing habits of consumers increasingly shift away from traditional cable, appears risky at first glance, Lyke believes in the ACC’s ability to adapt and provide fans with a number of different sources on which they can watch programming.
Provided it’s part of their cable package, a viewer can access live games and replays through WatchESPN, meaning they can watch from their laptops or phones. The network is also being offered through Hulu and PlayStation Vue.
“All of [ESPN’s] data and information shows that there’s a huge demand for live sporting events still on the live, traditional, linear networks,” Lyke said. “You can TiVo it, but you already know what happened. There will always be a demand for live television.”
The revenue-related reasons that give birth to such networks also come, for conference members, with a certain level of exposure they would maybe not otherwise receive. This upcoming season, the network will broadcast 40 football games and 150 men’s and women’s basketball games, according to Lyke, along with 78 events that will be produced from Pitt Studios, a $12 million project the university unveiled last October. For teams at the school, there’s a metaphorical carrot on a stick when it comes to that publicity, as the more successful they are, the more likely they are to make it onto the network.
After two years of discussions with ESPN executives and with those all-important 78 days ahead, Lyke is optimistic about what the network can accomplish.
“We’ve learned a lot from what the Big Ten did and we’ve learned a lot from the SEC Network,” she said. “I think this network is going to be even better.”
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
First Published: June 5, 2019, 7:23 p.m.
