Interesting that they picked late October dates.
I wonder if these games will actually get played or whether the contracts will end up being cancelled before then. And I wonder if they might turn out to be conference games instead.
- The current slate of TV contracts (Fox, NBC, et. al.) for the B1G and for Notre Dame (NBC) end with the 2029 season.
- Though Fox still controls the overall distribution rights for the B1G through 2036, they would still need to work with the conference to extend the various other partnerships through the end of that term.
- Notre Dame’s contract with the ACC goes through 2036. However, the resolution of Florida State’s fight with the ACC put in place a steady reduction in the amount of payments for a school to leave and take their rights with them. That amount bottoms out at $75M after the 2031 season. Technically, this does not affect Notre Dame’s contract with the conference, but it puts a pretty firm cap on what the liquidated damages might be if Notre Dame chooses not to honor the remainder of the existing contract, especially since the ACC is currently only distributing $17M per year to Notre Dame.
- One of the tweaks to the pending congressional bill to regulate College Football was to bump the proposed conference size limit from 18 teams to 19 teams, a necessary change before the B1G endorsed the bill.
All of this points to the turn of the decade as the next likely wave of conference realignment.
I think that Notre Dame’s future will also be heavily impacted by the outcome of the CFP format discussions this fall. ESPN is at the start of their current 30-day exclusive negotiating window with the schools before the schools have to declare their new format by December 1st. The amount of money available will have an impact on whether the CFP expands and how any additional slots will get divvied up. There are possible scenarios where Notre Dame might find itself frozen out without binding itself more formally to a conference.
Notre Dame also felt burned by the ACC taking a public position in favor of Miami jumping Notre Dame in the final CFP rankings last fall. They learned the power of the conference lobbyists when the CFP committee swapped the order of the two teams despite neither team playing in the intervening week. They might decide that it is best to have one of the big two conferences at their back when the next rankings controversy rolls around.