Keep a barf bag at the ready:
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2022/08/08/Champions/John-Swofford.aspx
"The ACC Network came with a price, and that price was an interminably long media rights agreement with ESPN that goes out to 2036.
The length of the ACC’s media rights deal has drawn scrutiny in recent months as conference realignment and expansion by the SEC and Big Ten reshuffled the power deck in college athletics. While those conferences are going back to their media partners for another round of revenue increases, the ACC is tied to the long-term 20-year extension through 2036.
What is overlooked, though, is that there wouldn’t be an ACC Network without such a lengthy media rights agreement. It was the cost of doing business at the time.
In fact, ESPN originally fought for the deal to extend out to 2039, but Swofford talked them down three years.
“People are always going to second-guess decisions and ask why they did such a long-term deal,” Skipper said. “It was an exchange of value. John was anxious to have a network, and I was anxious for him to have one. We did very good business with the SEC Network, which was a moneymaking business for us from Day 1. So, we were not reluctant participants in doing another network."
1. Swofford wanted a TV network because Slive/Sankey had one and his ego drove the deal to the point of blindness on the basic economic premise that there is ALWAYS Inflation.
2. Swafford ran the ACC for UNC's benefit and dreamed of UNC winning a football NC; again his personal dream made the interests of ACC schools a distant second...Remember how little personal capital he used during the Shapiro case? Heck, he probably wanted Miami to get the death penalty to help UNC
3. ACC staff, including officiating, were spineless "Yes-Men" MIT Sloan Sports peer-reviewed paper priced UNC and other Tobacco Road schools were benificiaries of Swofford directed bias officiating.
