Why ACC Network is struggling to make debut look successful

The ACC is just three months away form debuting their brand new cable network, but the slow path to get it going has been more hurtful than successful.

In the last week, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced the first three week schedule for the upcoming football season when it comes to what time games will kick off – including what networks games will be televised on, including the first games that will be televised on the new ACC Network that debuts at the end of August.

The schedule includes the defending champs from Clemson kicking off their season while our own beloved FSU football team will play both their home opener and ACC opener on the network – if your cable provider is one of the handful of providers that has actually decided to carry the new network’s debut season.

For the ACC, the card is being played that the launch announced nearly three years ago is going to be a success because of carriers like DirecTV that have already signed on and the live events include the defending champs kicking things off during the inaugural week of the upcoming season.

Florida State Seminoles

In reality, the network is still struggling to keep their heads above water – dealing in part because of the fact that the network is still telling people to contact their cable providers if they are not one of the seven or so providers that have signed on to broadcast the ACC Network.

The conference is now the fourth of the Power Five leagues to start their own cable network – following the Big Ten, Pac 12 and SEC – and everyone from Tallahassee to Syracuse and the 13 other campuses in the conference is wondering if the network is going to put them on par financially with the other big schools.

Translation: there are still so many questions left for the ACC to figure out before this new network can be considered a success at all.

Now, I get that the network hasn’t even started televising live action from the Seminoles, Tigers or any other ACC team so it has some time for everything to play out – but the hype surrounding its eventual launch has built up to the point where expectations of what we will see have gone over the edge to an extent.

For the last nearly three years, all we’ve heard is about the eventual launch of the ACC Network – now that it’s almost here, you kind of have a feeling like the network is going to just be another cable channel you pass over on the way to networks like ESPN, Fox Sports 1 and others.

Will the ACC do something bold to bring people over to watching it on a consistent basis, whether that be from live action to documentaries or other shows? Only time will tell – but at this point, something needs to take place sooner rather than later.