ESPN to air ACC, College Football Playoff games in movie theaters

In one of the more interesting concepts of the new college football season, ESPN and the ACC are going very, very old school for fans in the conference's markets.

ESPN announced that it will show ACC football games at movie theaters under an agreement with Theater Sports Network. The network will also air the New Year's Six bowl games, which include the two games designated as College Football Playoff semifinals (the Sugar Bowl and the Rose Bowl), and the College Football National Championship.

Under the deal, ACC games will be in theaters for the away team markets, meaning that when the Miami Hurricanes finish the season at Boston College, alumni and fans of Miami may choose to go to a theater in Boston to cheer on their team instead of contending with chilly temperatures in the stands. If an ACC game is played at a neutral site, theaters in both home and away markets will feature the game.

It would be easy to consider this a callback to early 1900s when people rushed to the theaters to watch film of the biggest sports events around the world. While radio was widespread, television was not, and many of the sports leagues and events we watch today had not experienced their cultural rise. College football, however, was perhaps the second-biggest team sport of that era behind baseball, making this distribution deal a fascinating callback to that era.

ESPN has shown college football games on the silver screen before, working with a different company to show the 2021 and 2022 College Football Playoff and national title games.

The distribution deal comes at a tense time for both ESPN and the ACC. Both are checking under the couch pillows for some loose change these days. Between ESPN's cost-cutting layoffs and the decline of cable and satellite subscriptions, the sports network is looking for different revenue generators. While this deal may not come close to equaling what ESPN pays its members in the broadcast rights deal, the ACC could dangle this carrot to the western schools that are looking to join the conference.