Where Can Pitt Improve Its Pitch to Impending Super Conferences?
PITTSBURGH -- Conference realignment used to be a far-flung threat - cause for concern but something far enough on the horizon that those in danger would have time to react. UCLA, USC and the Big 10 have sped up the process and left the rest of the Power Five in a state of panic. Schools now have to start preparing their resumes as further realignment bears down on them. The Pitt Panther are one of those schools and while they'd perhaps prefer their home in the ACC stay viable, creating contingency plans are just part of working in college sports today.
During the 2020-21 fiscal year, Pitt was among the highest earners in the ACC. Just six of the 14 full member schools had athletic departments that surpassed $100 million in total annual revenue and Pitt athletics just barely cleared that mark, hauling in $101,987,726. That puts them in the same neighborhood as Clemson, North Carolina, Duke and Virginia. Those are just a few of the schools named as prime candidates to join one of the impending 'super conferences'.
Still, despite the company they keep in terms of revenue, Pitt is expected to have to fight their way into a super conference. So far, Pitt Athletics has been treated as one of the ACC's middle class - too big to accept a spot in a lesser conference but also far from one of the elites that can count on a home in the mighty Big 10 or SEC. So if similar revenue numbers are not enough to vault them into that same conversation, what is?
The rumors about conference realignment within the ACC are unstable and unreliable, but many of them include a lot of the same information at their cores. Clemson and Florida State are the cream of the conference crop. Their massive followings, historic and recent success in football and annual revenue make them attractive candidates to the polarizing powers of so-called "College Sports Cold War". They will almost certainly be invited to join the SEC. Miami, their billionaire megadonor funding an active NIL collective and football dominance from the beginning of the millennium, fit in that same category, albeit to a lesser extent.
The other aforementioned schools have their eggs in a much less lucrative basket - basketball - but Duke and North Carolina have the hardwood pedigree and fanbase to justify a spot in a superleague, even without particularly strong football programs. Just like Miami is to football, Virginia is a basketball school who's recent history is strong enough to at least put them in the same rumors as Tobacco Road's elite.
The latest round of conference realignment has reportedly hit a lull after USC and UCLA provided the Big 10's counterbalance to the SEC's Oklahoma and Texas. Those additions offered two different versions of what value in college athletics. In adding USC and UCLA, the Big 10 signaled that massive regional markets like Los Angeles' matter. Meanwhile, the SEC sprung for the established dominance of college athletics' No. 1 and No. 8 revenue earners. It's the capacity for growth vs. existing wealth and you can't really go wrong.
For most of this process, institutional investment has been a good sign of who will be embraced by the true elites of college athletics. That's why as recently as this week, Texas Tech announced a $200 million commitment to its football program. Because athletic departments are considered non-profits, schools will try to match their spending to their revenue, even if it's possible to turn revenue positive. That very fact leads to the lavish facilities, extensive coaching staffs and rich coaching salaries that make regular headlines.
Spending typically correlates with revenue and revenue is logically indicative of a fan base's size. From there, an athletic department can drive massive revenue from tickets, concessions, parking and merchandise sales plus - and most importantly but somewhat indirectly - television viewership.
Pitt's current resume - home in the sizable television market of Pittsburgh, a football program trending upwards and a nine-figure annual revenue total - isn't anything to scoff at. But the Pitt brand does not carry the same kind of weight nationally that other schools might.
Look no further than football television viewership for evidence. Keep in mind that, in this day and age, it's difficult to calculate the true number of eyeballs on a single program, given how prevalent streaming and cord cutting are. Still, The Panthers ranked 54th in that category during the 2021 season, averaging 550,000 viewers per game during a season in which they won a Power Five league championship. Meanwhile, Miami and UNC, who went 7-5 and 6-7, respectively in the same conference, almost doubled up Pitt, drawing more than 1.03 million viewers per game.
It's just one metric by which a school will be judged, but nonetheless an important one. Television money is a massive part of any conference's budget and if the Panthers can't deliver a boost on that front, they aren't worth the trouble for a super conference.
Maybe the shine of the 2021 ACC title and marquee early season contests vs. West Virginia and Tennessee - both with prime kick-off times and television designations - will improve those numbers. And maybe But neither of those are possibilities the Panthers or any potential suitors can bank on.
Pitt faces an uphill battle in the fight to remain among the elite. While every realignment rumor should be met with a healthy degree of skepticism, they give an early and loose hint at who is on the outside looking in for now. Pitt is among them it's clear that they will need to either sweeten their pitch to the super conferences or hope the ACC can hold on.
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