David Teel: Football schedule could boost Sun Belt’s TV ratings, but not Hokies’

Schedules matter to fans, athletes, coaches, administrators and, yes, even lowly scribes.

Who, when and where you play, and on what linear/digital platform.No matter how theyre unveiled clever YouTube video, tedious television show or blessedly simple email these details are often important and intriguing.

Case in point, some news that recently hit the inbox.Friday prime timeEach of the first six Sun Belt football championship games was played on a Saturday opposite a power conference title contest.

ESPN has televised the event since its 2018 debut pandemic concerns prompted the 2020 editions cancelation but competing head-to-head for viewers with the Big 12 (2018 and 19 noon kickoffs), the SEC (2021-23 late-afternoon starts) and the Big Ten and ACC (2024 prime time) relegated the Sun Belt to TV audiences of less than 1 million, often less than 500,000.The Sun Belt will never approach the 10 million threshold the power conferences routinely surpass, but this years shift to Friday night (7 p.m.

kick, ESPN) figures to provide greater visibility/ratings for a league yearning to earn the Group of Fives automatic bid to the College Football Playoff.The only other championship games on the docket Dec.

5 are fellow G5s Conference USA, Mountain West and American Athletic, with the ACC, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and Mid-American the next day.All of the Friday title games are scheduled for the higher seeds campus, a home-field advantage available for the likes of Old Dominion, James Madison and Liberty.Eyeballs = moneyCatering to top brands Clemson and Florida State, the ACC this year begins distributing 60% of its football television revenue based on viewership.

The unique model makes announcements such as Thursdays of early-season kickoff times and network designations more interesting than ever.For example, we already knew that Virginia Techs opener versus South Carolina in Atlanta was a standalone game at 3 p.m.

on Sunday, Aug.

31 on ESPN, a potential ratings windfall for the Hokies.

But news that Techs first two home games, against Vanderbilt and ODU, are ACC Network prime-time telecasts offers less promise.David Teel: ACC goes Darwinian in settling lawsuits with FSU, ClemsonThough Nielsen doesnt calculate ratings for ACCN, internal metrics available to the conference and ESPN show those games often draw less than 500,000 viewers, much like contests on The CW.

And while, absent extraordinary conditions, Virginia Tech-ODU matchups arent, regardless of platform, ratings magnets, the Vanderbilt game had a chance.The Commodores, after all, return dynamic quarterback Diego Pavia from a 7-6 squad that defeated Virginia Tech, Alabama, Auburn and Georgia Tech last year.

But a 7:30 p.m., start Sept.

6 on ACCN, opposite Boston College-Michigan State on NBC and Michigan-Oklahoma on ABC, likely equates to a negligible audience.Were supposed to get weekly (ratings) updates, so yeah, that will be bizarre, Hokies athletic director Whit Babcock told me at ACC spring meetings.

Tell all Hokie fans to turn their TVs on before they leave for the game.Toward that end, Babcock is assessing every future non-conference series on Techs books those include ODU, Liberty, Arizona and Maryland for ratings and success potential.

Neutral-site games at the Carolina Panthers and/or Washington Commanders stadium, he added, could be appealing.We will take some action on that this summer, Babcock said.

Its a new world and a new way of distributing revenue, and its sent us back to put a magnifying glass on the schedule.

...When we perform well, we are one of the top-tier brands in the league from a viewership standpoint.

The last three years, weve certainly come back to the middle of the pack, but the ACC needs Virginia Tech to be great again, and theres nothing I want more than that.The Hokies stand ninth or 10th in ACC viewership over the past four years, Babcock said, numbers that are already baked into the five-year, rolling average for 2025-26, and thats not good enough.ACC mens basketball opponentsComplete with dates and times, the schedule wont be revealed until September, but Wednesday the ACC announced conference opponents for 2025-26.As we learned several weeks ago, when administrators voted to move from a 20- to 18-game league schedule, each of the 18 teams has a primary rival to play twice annually Virginia-Virginia Tech, Duke-North Carolina, NC State-Wake Forest, etc.

plus a variable partner to face twice, determined prior to each season and based on team potential and television appeal.The variable-partner concept also means that, for the first time, each ACC team isnt scheduled to face everyone in the conference at least once during the regular season.Multiple ACC expansions rendered many of the no-plays irrelevant.

Indeed, no one will lament missing Stanford-Syracuse, NC State-Cal and SMU-Georgia Tech, or even Virginia Tech-Pitt and Boston College-North Carolina.Virginia-Clemson is another story.

This will mark the first time since 1953-54 that the Cavaliers and Tigers have not collided during the regular season.Even more jarring, since theyre scheduled to play only once, NC State will not visit North Carolina for the first time since 1918-19.The good news is that the variable-partner model this season creates two meetings of the ACCs top projected teams, Duke and Louisville, plus two Virginia-NC State and Virginia Tech-Wake Forest encounters.The Cavaliers and Wolfpack have new coaches in Ryan Odom and Will Wade, respectively, each of whom had big-whistle stops at VCU.

Hokies coach Mike Young and his Deacons counterpart, Steve Forbes, go back to their Southern Conference days, Young at Wofford and Forbes at East Tennessee State.Schedule comedyNo sport approaches the NFL for schedule reveals, and if you need a lighthearted moment, check out the Buffalo Bills AI-assisted video.You wont regret the time.David Teel: [email protected]; @ByDavidTeel.

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