Clemson football: ACC revenue starting to be a concern

ACC revenue starting to become a little bit of a concern for Clemson football

There’s no doubt that the Clemson football program is well-funded with one of the top donor groups in the country.

The Tigers have thousands of donors who give generously year-in and year-out to fund facility upgrades, program needs and staff salaries, among other things. Every year we see the Clemson football team post significant numbers of revenue and there’s no doubt that this program under Dabo Swinney’s leadership has been a success and an integral part of the funding of other athletic programs around campus.

That being said, the ACC Network was supposed to become a significant source of revenue for conference athletic departments and while there has been growth, there is certainly still work to do as the ACC looks to play ‘catch up.’

In an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article detailing Georgia Tech’s finances, it was reported that the updated budges for ACC revenue disbursement is projected to be $32.1 million for the Yellow Jackets.

Why ACC revenue matters for Clemson football, even when the Tigers are bringing in plenty of private funds

In the fiscal year 2018-19, the ACC paid an average of $28.8 million to each school. This past year, with the ACC Network payments included, the ACC paid an average of $30.3 million to its member institutions with Clemson ($34 million) being the highest.

The problem? Even with Clemson making $34 million in revenue share, the Tigers are still well behind their opponents in other conferences. The SEC paid about $45.5 million to its member institutions last year. The Big Ten distributed at least $55 million to every single one of its member institutions in 2019.

If Georgia Tech is projected to make around $32 million, we can expect that Clemson’s payment will be a little higher than it was last year. The Tigers may make somewhere in the realm of $36 million to $38 million, but we’re just estimating.

Even so, the athletic department will be taking in more than $10 million less than every SEC member school and very close to $20 million less than every Big Ten school.

Bringing it back to football: We know that Clemson football is funded well, but so is Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and many other Power-5 programs. It’s a complete disadvantage for the Tigers to have to operate in the confines of smaller budgets and for teams- especially like Alabama and Ohio State- to be able to take advantage of this extra revenue that isn’t granted to Clemson.

Clemson football will continue to compete under Dabo Swinney, there’s no doubt. But Tiger fans need to keep a watchful eye on how the ACC generates revenue- in particular the ACC Network- over the next few years because it is starting to become a little more concerning.

It’s easy to look at the resources Clemson currently has and think it’s all fine, but the amount of revenue being generated elsewhere tells us that the ACC has some major catching up to do and that will absolutely affect how we see the Tiger Athletic Department operate in the future compared to many other ‘big universities.’