The membership signed all their TV broadcast rights to the conference until 2035. The conference then sold these rights to ESPN. ESPN then sold a piece back to RAYCOM. (which went to CW network now) SO the rights are sold, the only way is to add content/market.... and this has NOTHING to do with typical joe fan who buys his ticket to the game, or lack of fans in the stand. Stanford has the long term ND deal....both offer an additional window for the games for ESPN (the late night Pacific game, for ACC playing at Cal or Stanford. For media rights folks (they dont look at if the sport is popular but size of the market). The acc would be adding the bay area (and block out Fox). and do it pretty cheaply, while locking in Stanford and Cal until 2035. This is NOT ideal, but a couple of things. FSU is screaming, they will end up with total payment to the acc to almost 400-500 million. ACC would expect immediate payment. (that amount goes the other schools and increase rights to the schools). If clemson goes, its another 400-500 million. Then with cal and Stanford, its creates another increase in rights. With this new stream of money, total money of the conference would end up to getting close to the Sec numbers. and sustained until 2035.

starting point of a negotiation. FSU or anyone else will not pay anywhere near $400M to leave the conference, I would assume that most would agree. The other end of that "negotiation" is zero. $20M a year until the GOR expires is $260M. That is just over 1.5M per school for the remainder of the ESPN contract. If 2 Teams take the deal, that is over 3M per year, and so on. So, holding a school hostage when they have an opportunity to go to the P2 will not end well, but if the ACC is in a position to get that kind of money for the length of the media contract, I think it would be insane not to explore a "reasonable" exit fee.

The SEC probably hasn't added a 9th conference game because ESPN won't pay them more to do it.