Ross Dellenger, college football writer for Yahoo, tells McElroy & Cubelic how close Clemson & Florida State actually are to leaving the ACC and what kind of leader Brett Yormark is
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Welcome back in McElroy and Kubrick in the morning, 819 a.m. Friday, July 12th on jocks. Ninety four five going to go right to the buyers right hotline. Welcome in Ross Dellinger as he's been making the rounds on media days. I assume since there were three right there in Las Vegas, you hit all three just back to back to back.

Uh, pretty much. Yeah. I spent a little time with, uh, with each. So yeah, it was convenient to, uh, go to big 12, uh, for a couple of days. And then, uh, day two of the big 12, the, um, pack two had, uh, um, not really a full media days as there's only two cocktail hour. Yeah. It was really good. It was, it was good. It was a good idea by them. And then mountain West, uh,

um was uh was also there i'm interested just in the the pac-12 pac-2 uh media session like what what's we heard obviously the commissioner make a couple of jokes like what's the vibe of the future or i mean is there is there positivity is there is there hope is it kind of we're hanging on by a thread here like what's just the feel of what's happening right now

It's very uncertain. They're in a kind of limbo, and I think that we might not know the answer to their future for football.

you know, maybe another year. Um, you know, they, they get two years of grace period at the NCAA considers them still a conference. They get two years, uh, uh, by 2027, they'll have to build, build up to, uh, eight teams again to remain a conference and FBS conference. So they've got some time. Um,

But it is very uncertain, and I think really they're watching and patiently waiting on the landscape of college athletics, specifically with an eye, of course, on the ACC, about how any movement or next realignment wave could maybe impact them positively, where they could find a home or create or rebuild in some way.

Ross Dellinger joining us, Yahoo Sports. At Ross Dellinger, you can follow him on Twitter. Some of the news that you shared during these media days this past week was that there have been some preliminary conversations with a couple of ACC schools and potentially the Big 12. Florida State, Clemson specifically, what's realistically happening right now as it pertains to what future conference they will live in?

Yeah, Cole, I had quite a rough morning yesterday. I landed at 7 a.m. from a red-eye flight to a bunch of aggregated headlines from a radio interview I did on the final day of Big 12 Media Day where a five-second clip was

of a 15-minute interview is kind of blown up into fun realignment headlines. Look, when I talk about realignment, and I don't do this often, I don't speculate often, but when you talk about realignment,

You kind of have to speculate because there's no other way really to talk about it if you're going to talk about it. And so I just speculated on what the possibilities would be for the ACC's future. That's all I did. And I think, obviously, you ask about Florida State and Clemson, and those are the two everybody's watching. They're trying to exit the league in some way. They've followed –

lawsuits against the league to get out of the grant of rights. So what are their options? And that's basically what I laid out. And option one is going, probably, and this is their priority, is going to the SEC or the Big Ten. If there's no interest there, and if you believe that,

Folks over the last year or two, there's not a lot of interest there. That could change, right? An example is the Big Ten, which didn't have a lot of interest in Washington and Oregon, and then Fox gave them more money, and all of a sudden they're members, right? So things can change. Option two for Florida State Clemson would be probably reforming the ACC.

which I've talked about for a long time, right? A year ago, there's seven of them got together, seven ACC schools they met independently. And we're thinking about, you know, basically blowing up the league and forming a smaller conference where they could divvy up money to fewer members. Right. And so option three, um,

you know, it's pretty obvious. It is the Big 12. It's the only other power conference left. And we know that Brett Yolmark is very aggressive and he said it at media day on Tuesday. His opening address is the Big 12 is still open for business. The issue is finding the money, enough money to make it worthwhile for Florida State and Clemson to leave the ACC. Ross Dellinger of Yahoo Sports joining us on the Buyer's Right Hotline is asking,

How feasible would the Southeastern Conference or the Big Ten be for those schools? I've heard a lot of people essentially alluding to the fact that it's just not going to happen, that there's not room, there's not the desire, the money's not going to increase to the point where it would make sense. How real would you say those statements are?

Well, let's take one each. So the Big Ten, you'll remember their presence. First of all, they're at 18 members, which is pretty large. At some point, you go from a conference to an association. I don't know when that happens, but we're pretty close to that happening. So are they already big enough? Again, their membership vote originally voted down.

Washington and Oregon. And then Fox came back with more money, which tells you they don't want to dilution in their shares, their distribution, their TV money. So you add two more, you have to distribute if you're going to have the same

cut of distribution, you'd have to take a dilution. So you need more money from Fox or one of their other networks. And Fox is already, again, ponying up for Washington and Oregon. So will they give more money? And then there's the academic component. We know that the Big Ten is certainly

uh, leans on its, uh, academic prowess kind of, and, and it's been picky, uh, when it comes to expansion, uh, they look at academics and the, the AAU status of universities, probably a little more heavily than, than other, uh, leagues when they look at expansion. Um, and in the SEC, you know, the SEC already has schools in the States of Florida and South Carolina. They wouldn't,

open up new markets. And if you open up new markets, you get new TV revenue, right? So that, um, you know, it just doesn't make a ton of sense there. Um, but you know, could it be, could the sec be in, get more interested as a defensive maneuver? If the big 10, uh, is interested, maybe I guess, but for at least right now, um,

There's not a sense that either league is that interested. Again, these things can change on a dime. I mean, again, we saw the Big Ten change on a dime. But the bottom line is nobody, even in the Big 12, is going to take a dilution in their distribution shares, their money,

to add more teams. They're not going to do it, especially in a revenue sharing with revenue sharing coming up for athletes. So you've got to find more money, whether that's private equity, like Brad Yormark is looking into, or that's more money from their networks, like in the SEC, ESPN would have to give more money, or Fox, CBS, NBC would have to give more money to the Big Ten,

in order to add these schools in the networks

have shown that in the age of this evolution that we're in with streaming, that they don't just have an enormous amount of wealth right now. So it's all a tricky situation. But, you know, Florida State and Clemson got to have a place to go. You know, if they get out within the next year or two, they got to have somewhere to go. So you look around at these options and you wonder how this is all going to work. And there's a lot of uncertainty.

It feels like a stupid question, Ross, but I was doing some research on a couple of different things yesterday and was talking about all these schools that people think can win a championship in their new conferences like Oregon and Texas and Oklahoma, and only three schools have done that ever in a Power Five conference. Virginia Tech in 2004 did it. Florida State did it in 1992. Michigan State in 1953. Florida State did it going as an independent to the ACC. Right.

Is independence a real option for any of these schools that we're talking about that are dying to get to a new conference? Highly, highly unlikely. Notre Dame is an outlier. Their brand is so big and their alumni base is so broad across the country that they are valuable enough to get students

you know, 50, 60, $70 million a year from a TV and an independent TV network deal. And I don't know that anybody outside of Ohio state, Alabama in Texas, I would say those three, uh,

would have enough value to a TV network to get the kind of money or more that Notre Dame gets in an independent deal. And keep in mind,

Notre Dame plays five ACC teams. They have a contract with the ACC, a scheduling alliance with the ACC. And so they've had to kind of lean on that to schedule games because it's difficult being independent. So Florida State and Clemson, while they are valuable, and Florida State's brand is certainly, I would guess, when you talk to –

people who know these things about brands and their rankings nationally are probably in the top 10, but they're not in the top two or three. And that's really what it takes to go independent. So that would really surprise me. That would be the fourth option, certainly, that I didn't list earlier, but one that would probably not happen.

Like I said, it felt like a dumb question, but it also feels like every option is on the table now moving forward if you can find the right financing to be able to go and get what you need. Finally, you brought up Brett Yormark a moment ago. I don't know the man. I haven't met him. I haven't spoken to him. He feels like an absolute killer. How would you describe Brett Yormark?

Well, I think Deion Sanders got up there on the stage at Media Day and described Yohan Marquez as a baller, shot caller, and a boss, which was an interesting way to describe a commissioner. You know, Yohan Marquez, he's different than...

probably anybody else in college athletics that I've ever, ever interacted with. He comes in with a, as a kind of a big deal maker. That's, that's what he did as in working for the entertainment agency world. That's, you know, in the, in the NBA executive world, that's, that's the world he comes from. And he looks at everything,

as, um, as a deal, right. And, and what, and, and, and looks at everything, uh, in a way that, um, um, others, others don't in college athletics. He is always looking to, to increase revenue and value for his product, which in this case is the big 12, uh,

And he's brought them in the membership a lot of ideas, as I wrote about earlier this week. Some of those ideas have been embraced and have been approved or on the way to being approved. And others have failed and will fail in the future because I think a lot of his membership thinks they're maybe not what they need and are a little too eccentric. But he was hired recently.

kind of to make, make deals and to generate more revenue and value for the big 12. And you have to say that he's done a lot of that. You know, they added the four teams. They're about to do this naming rights deal for with more money. You know, he's, he's done some other, other things promotional marketing with the, with the brand of the big 12 or soon maybe the all state 12. So, you know,

You know, he's done a lot of those things, but he's certainly different than anybody in college athletics. Ross, we really appreciate the time. I know it's been a busy week for you and obviously a hectic week, like you said, because some of the things may be being a little bit misconstrued, but glad you spent some time with us this morning. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Ross Dellinger of Yahoo Sports joining us on the Buyer's Right Hotline. For all your insurance needs, look to Buyer's Right Insurance, a member of the WRM group where relationships matter. Listen, I know the independent thing sounds nutty,

But wasn't it Florida State that we initially heard about looking into private equity first? So if you're Florida State and you have that money and you can find that money and they can float you, there are a lot of people that would want you on their schedule. Greg made a great point about Florida State to the Big 12 yesterday, saying, let's look at some of the games. Show me the games of importance. I don't see a ton of

Now, show me the games of importance in the ACC. There are many. I would imagine if Florida State were to say, hey, we have a deal for enterprises, since Trent's the first one that put us on this private equity thing. I'll give him credit for that. They want to give us half a billion dollars to float us for the next 10 years, and they were to go independent, bet they could play Notre Dame every year. Bet that could happen. You think Florida wants to keep that on the schedule? Yeah, probably. Probably.

I think both those schools are probably interested in keeping that game. A couple other schools in the state of Florida want to keep that thing going. Central Florida, South Florida, Miami, FIU, FAU. I bet they'd probably sign up for that one. Regardless of what the conference has said about it. You can tailor make the schedule however you want. So the Big Ten, they might not want Florida State, might not have room for Florida State.

Probably a couple schools in that conference that wouldn't mind playing him every year. Again, I'm admitting it personally that it sounds insane. It sounds crazy. But if Brett Yormark's having to go get private equity money to force a way for Florida State to potentially move in, and there's not enough money to go around for Florida State to get to the Big Ten, maybe the SEC just doesn't see room.

If you can individually find a way to show enough brand value to get the private equity money yourself, is it even feasible is the question. Because if it's only one school, how much do you really need to keep up with everybody else? Oh, and by the way, if we're all going to all these conference rules and the conferences are going to govern down the road and that's where we're headed, how much more value does independence then have? We're capping our NIL here. You can only have this many scholarships. The roster size is going to be this.

Whoops. We don't have that. We do whatever we want. Now, you better swing a big stick if you're going to try to play out on that island. You better have a lot of resources, a lot of canned goods. You have a lot of matches out on that island. Save up your bottle of water. You better. I mean, you better have a big Swiss Army knife, good hatchet. But all I'm saying is it doesn't feel like anything should be ruled out right now because it's just so crazy with the things that you hear that are happening behind the scenes.

We'll discuss that a little bit more right after this on McElroy and Kubrick in the morning. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kubrick in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than a player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the jock app or wherever you get your podcasts. At your job, do you ever have to deal with a nose roller? How about a snub pulley?

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