The Atlantic Coast Conference goes farther west, adding Cal, Stanford, and SMU to the league

The Atlantic Coast Conference, a collegiate athletic alliance whose membership is rooted only in the Eastern Time Zone, will spread west this fall, adding University of California, Stanford and dallas sexternal MEthodox uuniversity officials said Friday.

Cal and Stanford are the ninth and tenth institutions in the Pacific-12 Conference to announce their exit from the old league, leaving only Oregon State and Washington State in limbo for the 2024-25 sports and academic year.

SMU now plays in the American Athletic Conference, and is based in Irving, Texas, and already competes regularly against teams in Southeast and the Carolinas.

“This is an important day for the ACC as we welcome Cal, SMU and Stanford to this amazing conference,” said University of Virginia President and ACC Board Member James E. Ryan. he said in a statement. “This expansion will enhance and strengthen the league now and in the future.”

Friday’s announcement is the latest domino to fall in a stunning shift in college sports as schools abandon long-standing local alliances to chase more TV money in distant leagues.

USC and UCLA stunned the college sports world last summer when the Los Angeles schools announced they would join the Big Ten based in the Midwest in 2024-25.

Oregon and Washington followed, duking out the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. This led to Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado leaving for the Big 12, a league with most of its members between Texas and Iowa.

All of these Pac-12 defections have forced Bay Area schools to desperately search for admission to a major athletic conference.

While the Colorado Springs-based Mountain West Conference would have been a good fit geographically for Cal and Stanford, the Northern California institutions didn’t want to give up their prestige and TV money.

The financial terms for admission to Cal, Stanford and SMU were not immediately disclosed.

But cal V said a statement that it would “contribute a portion of its media revenues to support and promote the conference” and that these payments “will diminish until the tenth year, at which point it will begin to retain 100% of its share of media revenues”.

Cal’s lack of ACC media revenue will be at least partially offset by UCLA, which could end up paying between $2 million and $10 million annually under Big Ten terms. Departure set by the UCLA Board of Trustees.

The three ACC schools will compete in all currently mandated sports.

Aside from newcomer SMU, the closest ACC cities to Cal and Stanford will be South Bend, Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky, both about 2,200 miles from the Bay Area.

The league will focus on “reducing travel burdens for student-athletes,” according to Ryan, the VA president and ACC chair.

A possible alternative to traveling across the country would be for some non-revenue sports to hold matches at a neutral venue in Texas.

“The ACC is really interested in using Dallas as a place where teams can come together for games to minimize the impact of travel on both the Eastern members, Cal and Stanford.” Cal Counselor Carol Christ said.

Current ACC members include Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest.

Notre Dame plays football independently but is on the ACC for other sports, such as basketball, baseball, soccer, and softball.

The conference is known as Men’s basketball prowess and fierce Tobacco road competitions. UNC has won the NCAA tournament six times, and Duke is the state champion five times.

Moving west is also an insurance policy for the ACC and its long-term survival in the event of one of the big-name football organizations, such as Clemson or Floridaever leave for another league.