ESPN's new deal with ACC: Who says they haven't bought College Sports?

((ht: sbj.com/theacc.com))

15-years and $3.6 billion. The ACC on ESPN through 2027.

Think about it.

Can you make the argument that ESPN owns College Sports now? That they are the primary, driving voice in what happens, when and where?

If you couldn't before, you most certainly can now.

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced late Wednesday afternoon they've re-done their deal with the 4-letter word (ESPN). And the terms mentioned above...that, according to the Sports Business Journal's John Ourand...is what the deal is worth.

Think about it. $3.6 billion, for a mediocre College Football conference, but pretty good College Hoops conference. That is a lot of freaking money. We can only imagine the "re-negotiated" SEC deal when it finally happens.

The ACC deal, which allows ESPN exclusive rights to telecast the ACC Hoops championship and Friday football games along with the Thursday night games they already telecast, was built around the ACC's addition of Syracuse and Pittsburgh.

Read more from the ACC Press Release RIGHT HERE

While we can't begrudge the ACC for taking the money and running, this just pains us to see. It further diminishes the amateur status of College Sports and just reinforces that College Football and College Basketball are pretty much completely run by ESPN.

And yes, we know, ESPN has the money so why not?

Deep down, we understand that this is the way College Sports now operate. If you are in a "Power" Conference, your schools get boatloads of money. And if you aren't...you are lucky to see the light of day on TV.

And we also understand the ESPN is trying to buy it all up in case an upstart like NBCSports or CBSSports tries to buy in.

But it just sucks.

It takes what little of the amateur part of college sports that existed...out of play. And like we said, we just hate that if you aren't playing sports in the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12 or SEC, you have little or no chance to ever be shown on television.

Really, we do know we are tilting at windmills here...but does anybody agree with what we are saying? We just want to know.

Here is ACC Commish John Swofford talking about his and his conference making room for the truckloads of ESPN cash: