Once upon a time…
Then, Bowden told the story of how Florida State joined the ACC in the early 1990s instead of the SEC. Bowden’s reasoning was that Florida State would have had a tough time winning a national championship if it had to go through the SEC.
“I felt that it was too difficult to win through the SEC to win a national championship,” Bowden told Finebaum. “I felt like our best route would be to go through the ACC and that did prove out to be correct. I don’t know if we could have made it through the SEC.”
How you like me now, FSU?
On Friday, tax returns for the five major college conferences were made public. The good news for Florida State is the ACC increased its distribution to member schools by nearly 11 percent from the prior year.
The bad news is that the ACC continues to lag well behind the Big Ten and SEC. What is somewhat surprising is how large the revenue gap has grown as of late. For the 2017-18 fiscal cycle, the SEC is outpacing the ACC by $14.2 million per school, and the gap was a whopping $24.5 million compared to the Big Ten.
In just three years, the difference between the ACC and SEC distributions has more than doubled from $6.5 million to $14.5 million per school…
As a result of these disparities, many of the schools that directly recruit against FSU are gaining a significant financial advantage. Nearby University of Florida and University Georgia, for instance, have racked up an extra $52 million each in distributions since the 2014-15 fiscal year. That was the first full year after FSU signed the long-term grant of rights agreement with the ACC.
These chilling numbers only add to mounting financial concerns that have plagued Seminole athletics as of late. For the last reported financial cycle, the athletics department reported a $3.6 million deficit and a similar deficit is expected for 2018-19.
Maybe you could sell a couple of trophies on eBay to tide you over.
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