A year from launch, ACC Network could set sail in choppy media waters

Dean Jordan is the ACC's media rights guru. An executive at Wasserman Media Group, Jordan was instrumental in helping Commissioner John Swofford make the ACC Network happen with ESPN. Two years after the channel's announcement and one year out from its debut, he feels strongly in the value in televised Power 5 sports.

"Sports is what drives a lot of this stuff. It's the only program you have to watch live," Jordan explained to 99.9FM The Fan. "Just look at the advertising numbers … There's so many ways you can sell it and generate revenue."

Jordan pointed out OTT services, such as Sling TV and YouTube TV, didn't really take off as an alternative to the traditional bundle until they started adding sports programming. Because it brings eyeballs, Jordan doesn't see the sports rights bubble for major properties popping any time soon.

"We've heard [about the bubble] for years and years, and it never happened," Jordan said. "It kind of happened around 1994 or 1995, but it lasted six months, and it was back to rights fees going up."

For the ACC's sake, it better keep going up.

Football and basketball will be the main drivers of interest for the ACC Network, but Jordan believes Olympic sports will also bring fans to the channel.

"As long as you can have live content – because each school has fans and each school has parents and relatives of participants on the teams. It's just aggregating all that critical mass," explained Jordan.

Unbundling: Joe Ovies explores cutting the cable cord

Sling TV, YouTube TV, DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue and FuboTV have a mostly homogenous roster of channels in various tiers. One service might have a channel (national or local) the other doesn't have and vice versa. Cloud-based DVR is becoming standard. The user interfaces within each app ultimately come down to personal preference.

Each service has also hiked up prices in recent months. Netflix increased their two-screen subscription plan to $10.99 a month. Hulu, which includes a live TV option, can run up to $43.99 a month. When you throw in decent fiber internet access (which I'd consider more of a utility at this point, like water and electricity), the cost savings from ditching your old bundle start to deteriorate.

Turns out these cord-cutting solutions suffer the same issues that caused your old cable and satellite bills to inflate. Creating and providing content, especially live sports, is expensive. ESPN has compensated for the loss of overall subscriptions and the revenue associated with it the best way they can by rearranging its carriage agreements, charging upwards of $10 per subscriber for the combination of ESPN and ESPN2. Those costs get passed down to the OTT operators, which eventually get passed down to the consumers who pay for the OTT service.

As if the marketplace isn't fractured enough, streaming services boasting cheaper monthly rates by stripping all sports programming are now available. Philo, offering a basic, 40-channel lineup for $16 a month, launched in late 2017. Comcast's Xfinity Instant TV is an $18-a-month service available only to Comcast broadband customers. AT&T followed with a competing service this summer dubbed Watch TV, which is available as part of an unlimited wireless plan or as a $15-a-month standalone app.

And I haven't even broached how the upcoming 5G mobile standard will allow broadband-like speed away from WiFi hotspots or content initiatives from Facebook, Twitter and Amazon.

Disney has also been given some pushback by cable and satellite companies who are fighting to keep customers. Where it used to be standard to have ESPN on a basic tier, some plans now put the network on a sports add-on package. Many in the industry watched Disney's carriage dispute with Altice, a smaller cable operator, as a potential bellwether for future negotiations with the bigger companies. The two sides eventually came to an agreement for ESPN's suite of channels, including the ACC Network.

During his commissioner's forum at the ACC Kickoff, Swofford noted the conference will finalize the live event programming schedule and will begin the process of reviewing different show ideas that will be on the ACC Network. By next spring, the ACC will likely announce the talent for the programs and lead game announcers for all sports. Meanwhile, conference schools have been busy upgrading or building entirely new production facilities to accommodate the upcoming increase in television inventory.

Speculation that Charlotte would be the home of the ACC Network was squashed late last year when it was announced the channel would originate from Bristol, Conn.

"Bottom line, whether it's production, distribution, scheduling or anything else related to the network, I am pleased to be able to tell you that we are right on schedule," Swofford said.

In the meantime, we can all just stare at their snazzy new network logo until we find out more.