ACC Basketball Finals means end of era for longtime TV partner

The ACC Basketball finals on Saturday will be the final time that the group of stations which made the conference a household name will be televising games.

Long before a time where a television network from Bristol, Connecticut got into the game and decided to purchase the rights to broadcast almost everything, events from the ACC – including weekly football and basketball games as well as the ACC Basketball tournament each year – were broadcast on a group of stations across the region that changed the game.

For much of the last four decades, Raycom Sports – and the various names it was under over that span – was the place that fans of the conference went to watch Florida State, Duke, Clemson and the rest of the 16 teams (can’t forget Maryland) who have played in the conference over that span.

It was a string of affiliates that agreed to show football games each Saturday afternoon and ACC basketball games on weekdays and weekends during the season – it could have been a NBC affiliate in one market and CBS in another, but one thing it did was give the conference coverage that it didn’t have before.

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Most current sports fans who are used to having dozens of sports channels and internet outlets showing virtually every game there is don’t realize that there was a time when just a handful of college sports events that were broadcast across the country. Most schools would work out deals to broadcast games on local affiliates, but Raycom Sports at least gave regional exposure.

Duke-North Carolina basketball, one of the top rivalries in sports, was a staple of their broadcast schedule before ESPN and others picked it up. During the dynasty era of FSU football, the Seminoles saw anywhere between two to four games each season broadcast across the southeast.

It wasn’t the broadcast value that we are used to today with HD and 4K and everything else, but it brought ACC football and ACC basketball into your home without having to pay for cable at a time when cable wasn’t the luxury it is today.

But, like all good things, it comes to an end on Saturday night with the ACC basketball title game – the final broadcast of the conference by Raycom Sports as starting with the 2019-20 seasons all games from the conference that used to be done by affiliates will be broadcast as part of the new ACC Network, founded as part of an agreement with ESPN.

It’s an agreement that the conference has been waiting for after years of trying to get it off the ground – and a network that is projected to bring plenty of additional money to teams in the conference that will help pay for things like the new football only facility at FSU among other items that will help conference teams stay competitive.

Look, on paper the move is a no brainer – the ACC will make buckets of money to help it stay on par with other power five programs that have their own networks (even though the ACC missed a chance to do more, but more on that at a later date) and the quality of broadcast will be amazing.

But, there is no doubt that a piece of the conference’s history will be going away with the final sign off after Saturday’s game – a network that did more to help make the ACC relevant than a lot of other things.

So, if the game is being shown in your market on one of the Raycom Sports affiliates carrying it, why don’t you give the Worldwide Leader the night off and – for one final time – enjoy ACC basketball the way it has been for decades.