CHARLOTTE, N.C., and BRISTOL, Conn.—The Atlantic Coast Conference and ESPN have announced that the sports programmer has exercised its option to extend its TV rights deal for the college conference’s games through the 2035-36 academic year.

The ESPN and ACC relationship has spanned more than 35 years and includes ACC Network, which was launched in August 2019. ACC Network is one of only three national and fully distributed conference networks.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Separately, ESPN.com reported that “the conference is working on additional ‘value adds,’ which could include creating more marquee matchups in football and men's basketball to maximize content on the networks that would help pave the way toward the new revenue distribution model and a settlement with Clemson and Florida State [in their ongoing litigation with the ACC]. Multiple athletic directors told ESPN this could also involve using the ACC's relationship with Notre Dame to strategically create more games against the conference's top-tier teams. Earlier this month, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua said he was open to playing more games against Clemson in the future. Notre Dame currently plays five to six regular-season football games against the ACC annually and is a member of the ACC in all other sports.”

Notre Dame has a national television deal with NBC Sports for its home games but road games against ACC teams are televised under the ESPN-ACC contract.

“We appreciate the ongoing partnership with ESPN and their enduring commitment that further solidifies the ACC as a premier league in all facets,” said ACC commissioner Jim Phillips. “The extension showcases the importance of our long-standing relationship, and I want to personally thank the entire ESPN team for their leadership and dedication to our collective future. In addition, I want to thank our ACC Board of Directors who have been involved throughout this entire process. The resolve from both parties to further enhance the partnership through innovation and creativity to continue to drive additional value remains our top priority.”

“We are pleased to extend our media rights agreement with the ACC through 2036, continuing our longstanding relationship,” said Jimmy Pitaro, chairman, ESPN. “We remain committed to serving the ACC, its member schools, student athletes and fans via comprehensive live game coverage, storytelling and broad exposure across our unprecedented array of networks and platforms, including ACC Network. The ACC is a pillar of ESPN’s leading commitment to college sports and we are thrilled to continue the partnership over the next decade.”

BURBANK, Calif.—Nexstar’s CW Network continues to bulk up on sports rights with the announcement that it has secured exclusive broadcast rights to 50 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) college football and basketball games each season through 2026-27. 

The CW, which is 75% owned by Nexstar, acquired the rights to these live ACC football and basketball games from Raycom Sports, which is owned by Nexstar. Raycom sublicenses the rights from ESPN.

“We are committed to making The CW a destination for live, appointment-viewing sporting events,” said Dennis Miller, president, The CW Network. “The ACC is home to some of the most decorated college football and basketball teams in the country and we look forward to welcoming these avid sports fans to the network as we continue to broaden our audience.”

The first ACC football game will air on The CW on Saturday, September 9 with a matchup between the Pitt Panthers and non-conference opponent Cincinnati Bearcats, with games airing every Saturday throughout the season in the afternoon and in primetime. 

In addition to 13 football games, The CW will broadcast 28 men’s basketball games and nine women’s basketball games. These games will be featured in December, January and February with men’s basketball doubleheaders taking place every Saturday afternoon and   women’s basketball games on Sunday afternoons. Raycom Sports will produce all games for The CW.

“We are thrilled to be adding The CW to our weekly television lineup for ACC football and basketball games,” said ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, Ph.D. “The CW’s national distribution will directly benefit our student-athletes, teams, alumni and fans. We appreciate ESPN and Raycom working together and look forward to the partnership with The CW.”

“The CW is going to be a terrific partner for the legendary ACC,” added Hunter Nickell, CEO of Raycom Sports, which is owned by Nexstar. “The longest-running television relationship in college sports belongs to the ACC and Raycom Sports. Now The CW brings national broadcast network coverage to the great fans of these 15 famous schools.”

In announcing the deal, Nexstar noted that the ACC members have won more NCAA national championships in the last two years than the other conference. The league has won 16 national titles in the last two academic years, including a league-record nine in 2022-23.

The ACC has won seven national championships in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and baseball since 2015. The ACC is the only conference to win each of those four titles over that stretch, Nexstar said. 

The ACC has had a team in either the College Football Playoff or the BCS National Championship Game in eight of the last 10 years, including two teams in 2020. The ACC has placed the second-most teams in the CFP since its inception.

The ACC placed nine teams in football postseason games in 2021. That marked the 22nd consecutive season in which the ACC earned at least six bowl bids. Not including the pandemic-affected 2020 season, the ACC has sent at least nine teams to a bowl every year since 2016. Since 2013, the ACC is second among all conferences with 100 postseason appearances, the company reported. 

NEW YORK—VUit, the free, ad-supported streaming service, continues to build out its content offerings, announcing that it is launching the college sports-centric channel “ACCDN Confidential.” The channel, which launched on April 15, is in partnership with ACC Digital Network and Raycom Sports.

ACCDN Confidential is a 24/7 channel that will feature highlights and athlete spotlights from the Atlantic Coast Conference, which includes schools like Clemson, University of North Carolina, Duke, University of Miami, Syracuse University, University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, as well as others.

As the channel launches two weeks prior to the 2021 NFL Draft, early programming will consist of “best of 2020” highlight reels from NFL draft prospects. Following the NFL Draft, basketball-centric programming will be available that wraps up the 2020-2021 Men’s College Basketball season and looks ahead to the NBA Draft.

Other content will include team previews ahead of sports seasons.

“We know there is a large appetite for sports on VUit, and being able to work with Raycom to create ‘ACCDN Confidential’ helps us fulfill that,” said Jack Perry, CEO and founder of Syncback, VUit’s parent company. “The new channel also ties to our overall mission of providing a national audience access to local news, sports and culture that has great appeal. In this case we are super-serving access to a sports conference that has a national following.”  

For more information, visit www.vuit.com.  

CHARLOTTE, N.C.--Raycom Sports has chosen Avid’s Media Central platform to streamline the production and management of digital assets associated with its NCAA Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) sports footage archive. Raycom Sports is a sports marketing, event management, and production firm owned by Montgomery, Ala.-based station group Raycom Media. 

Raycom Sports is making the move to Media Central from Avid to accelerate and simplify the provision of digital assets from its vast ACC media library to ESPN’s new ACC Network, starting in 2019.

While Raycom Sports has been producing and distributing NCAA ACC sports, primarily football and basketball events since the early 1980’s, and managing a library of digital ACC assets, this media library also includes 60-70 years of historical ACC footage that needs to be digitized, as quickly and efficiently as possible, to make it easier to search, access, archive and monetize.

[Read: Gray, Raycom To Combine, Creating Third Biggest Station Group]

Raycom Sports also indicated that its existing, aging media infrastructure made it challenging to support integrated workflows and remote teams, thereby slowing production and increasing costs. To overcome these challenges, Raycom Sports has opted to standardize on a fully integrated sports production workflow enabled by Avid MediaCentral that will support the ingest and archive of historical assets, making content accessible across departments and geographies, and handling their future UHD/4K needs.

“Avid’s reliable technology allows us to focus on telling compelling stories,” said Alex Farmartino, Coordinating Producer at Raycom Sports. “Whether it's the story of a game or a feature about a player off the field, the main reason we’ve stuck with Avid is it works…and allows you to do your job better.”

Avid channel partner Marshall Graphics Systems will help Raycom Sports implement the MediaCentral collaborative workflow, including Avid NEXIS software-defined storage, MediaCentral | Asset Management and Avid FastServe media servers.

“In the competitive world of sports broadcasting, media companies can offset increasing operation costs and create new revenue streams by being able to quickly search for and repurpose existing content,” said Ray Thompson, Director, Broadcast and Media Solutions Marketing at Avid.

Thompson added, “Raycom Sports can [now] facilitate remote production and collaboration by enabling staff across departments and locations to search for and access the same media, while streamlining media lifecycle management and ensuring historical content is preserved for future generations to enjoy.”