The ACC has always shown it's more than happy to cut its nose off to spite its face and Saturday's TV assignment for FSU-Clemson is the latest example of that.
With a glut of ACC conference games on in the 7 p.m. block, the Seminoles and Tigers have been relegated to the ACC Network. This is in deference to Wake Forest-Virginia being placed on ESPN and Cal-Louisville getting the ESPN2 treatment.
After suing the ACC and pushing through a revenue share based on TV ratings, FSU vs. Clemson next week will air on non-Nielsen rated ACC Network.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 1, 2025
The ACC will say their justification for this is that neither Clemson nor FSU is in the race for the conference championship or the 12-team playoff bracket. That is correct, and neither team can blame the ACC for their struggles this season. But if they dare suggest that ratings for FSU or Clemson games have fallen, it's a total lie.
Have FSU and Clemson been good for ratings in 2025?
Yes they have! Clemson's season over with LSU put up a massive 10.4 rating, but that wasn't a surprise. At the time, both teams were rated in the top 10 and expected to compete for the playoffs. That hasn't happened.
However, Clemson's game against Georgia Tech (Sept. 13) on ESPN drew the highest rating for the time slot in nearly a decade. Clemson's game against Syracuse a week later drew a strong rating for the noon time slot and was among the top 5 games watched that week (Sept. 20).
FSU's ratings are buoyed by the Alabama game (10.7M viewers) and Miami game (6M viewers) as expected. But the Virginia game set records for ESPN Friday night college football games with 4.4 million viewers and a peak of 6.9 million. Even FSU-Pitt, competing head-to-head with Alabama-Missouri and Ohio State-Illinois during the noon slot on October 11, was still one of the top 10 most watched games of the weekend.
Why would the ACC do this?
The simple explanation is that it's a low-budget conference with a low-budget mentality. The big wigs are appalled that FSU and Clemson actually want to compete at the highest level in college football and were willing to take them to court to get it done.
If this is the ACC's version of payback, good for them. They have shuttered one of the biggest draws of the season to college sports' version of public access television. People will still figure out a way to watch, even those dealing with the YouTube TV blackout, but if the ACC thinks they are sending a message — this only adds to the evidence that the people in charge aren't serious about college football.