BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock was adamant Wednesday afternoon that “noticeable improvement” was needed from a football program that has not recorded more than seven victories in five straight seasons.
Babcock didn’t earmark how many victories would constitute an improvement — “It is not an ultimatum of this many victories,” he told a small group of reporters during a near hour-long interview outside of his office — but noted the Hokies couldn’t afford to underachieve again.
"It is not a real good situation to underachieve in football and men's basketball in the same year," the athletic director said.
The need to see improvement on the gridiron comes as the economic calculus within the ACC is undergoing significant changes. While men’s and women’s basketball factor into the equation, football is the driver that determines how much money flows into the athletic departments within the league.
The better the football program, the higher the dollar figure that will be distributed to the athletic department from the league. It’s why Babcock and football coach Brent Pry are focused on turning the program around heading into the fourth year of Pry’s tenure.
People are also reading…
“One definitely leads to the other,” Babcock said. “Success gets you more viewerships, more marquee time slots.”
Virginia Tech coach Brent Pry speaks during a March 18 press conference in Blacksburg.
The ACC, as part of settling multiple lawsuits with Florida State and Clemson, agreed to revise its revenue distribution model and lower exit fees over the coming years.
The revenue distribution model centers around the league’s media rights deal with ESPN through 2036. Previously, the league evenly distributed the yearly media rights to league members. The new model will see 40% of the television money distributed evenly among the 14 long-standing ACC members (this excludes newcomers SMU, California and Stanford), and the other 60% will be distributed based on a ratings-based formula from the last five years.
ACC, Clemson, Florida State approve settlement to end legal fight, change revenue-distribution model
“I absolutely believe it solidifies (the ACC) in the near term … Again, with viewership, if you’re one of the top few schools, you’re going to be within striking distance with the money you receive that year compared to the SEC and the Big Ten,” Babcock said. “And the ACC’s better off with Clemson and Florida State in the league, so it brings some short-term stability, absolutely.
“But it also sets the league up to carry on beyond that. So I think the commissioner (Jim Phillips) did a tremendous job and people are certainly looking at 2030 as the next inflection point and we’re all going to be the best we can as we try to get to that. But I can also now see a scenario that the ACC does continue, and I hope it does.”
The ratings-based formula for distribution of media rights will be based on football and men’s basketball viewership. Babcock said the first four years are already baked in through the current year, and the upcoming year will account for 35% of the rolling five-year average in football.
“But because of the last four years, we didn’t perform as well as we need to. Heck, we were scheduling to try to win. We weren’t worried about viewership,” Babcock said. “And now those four years are already baked. So it will take us backward a little bit, but we’re not afraid to compete. … We need to change that narrative.”
The Hokies, with a combined 22-28 record over the last four seasons, haven’t been privy to many marquee kickoff times and have not enjoyed high viewership numbers recently. Only three games over the last two seasons have drawn more than 3 million viewers (Florida State in 2023 and Miami and Minnesota in 2024) that were .
Games on the ACC Network or streamed on ESPN Plus are not included in Nielsen reports. Babcock said the ACC uses Comscore to measure viewership for those contests.
Tech is primed to garner eyeballs for at least three games in the upcoming season. It plays South Carolina in Atlanta in a standalone season opener on Sunday, Aug. 31, and has ACC matchups with Florida State and Miami.
“Without knowing it, set it up pretty well for viewership,” Babcock said. “We’ve got South Carolina in that standalone game, and that should be a pretty good one. We play Florida State and Miami, that should be a good one.”
The Hokies also host Cal on Friday, Oct. 24. The ACC announced Thursday afternoon that it has 12 games on Fridays involving league teams this upcoming season.
Tech’s 2024 game at Miami was on a Friday night and drew 3.26 million viewers on ESPN.
“Friday nights are for high school football, but Friday nights seem to be driving more football viewership than Thursday night does,” Babcock said. Tech had 702,000 viewers for its ESPN Thursday night game against Boston College last season.
Another wrinkle in the settlement with Florida State and Clemson was the possibility that Notre Dame, which is scheduled to face five ACC opponents each season, could play the bigger ACC brands on a more consistent basis.
That means there could be more matchups with FSU, Clemson and Miami, which could leave the Hokies on the outside looking in. Tech is scheduled to play at Notre Dame in 2027 and welcome the Fighting Irish to Blacksburg in 2028.
“We are still awaiting information on that, because … if you were counting on Notre Dame as your second Power Five nonconference opponent and the date gets moved, that would certainly shuffle it,” Babcock said. “So the Notre Dame component, we’re all anxious about getting clarity on that. Whether the games are going to stay where they are or are they going to get moved. So that’s a piece of it.”
The Hokies have at least one power conference opponent on the schedule through 2037, and they have multi-game series with Group of Five programs Old Dominion and Liberty.
“Marquee opponents will be important. We have a lot of those,” Babcock said. “The dates you play on, who you play, absolutely.”
Babcock said “everything’s being looked at on our schedules” with regards to football. That could potentially be shortening or canceling the remainder of the ODU series, which features three road tilts in the remaining seven games. The Hokies host Liberty three straight years between 2027-29 before traveling to Lynchburg for the series finale in 2030.
“We like playing them at home,” Babcock said when asked about facing Liberty.
Success on the gridiron also is tied into how the ACC distributes payments to its member schools. The current year is the first in which the league will distribute payments based on success in the revenue generating postseason competition like football and men’s and women’s basketball.
Babcock said he believes the Hokies’ appearance in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl will generate $1.6 million from the success initiative, and the men’s and women’s basketball teams will not receive units for not making their respective NCAA tournaments.
“A football unit, just making a bowl game in football is either slightly above or really close to if you win the national championship in basketball,” Babcock said. “So when you talk about success initiatives, yes basketball is important, but football, if you can make a bowl game and you can make it to 6-6 and receive more than if you win the national championship in basketball, I think it shows you the importance of football.
“But I’d love to have those dollars for men’s and women’s, and we all know we need to be participating in those tournaments, and that’s the expectation.”
Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock, shown Wednesday at the football team’s Pro Day, said he wants to see “noticeable improvement” from the football and men’s basketball teams next season.
Virginia Tech, even as revenue distribution changes in the ACC, will remain a Nike school for the coming years. Babcock said the current deal ends in June and he is anticipating a five-year extension.
“The game has changed a little bit in that space. There’s not as much competition in that space,” Babcock said. “But we love wearing Nike. Our athletes love wearing Nike and yeah, we’ll be OK with that. But the market has certainly changed.”
The Hokies have three major events at Lane Stadium in a 34-day window.
The first is the annual spring game that will feature two significant changes. General admission tickets will cost $10 and parking in the five lots around the stadium will be $25 per car on a first-come, first-serve basis.
“Charging for the spring game, once you do decide to charge, your costs go up a lot, from security, tickets, all that sort of stuff,” Babcock said. “But the spring game, we needed to do that. And I appreciate our fans understanding that. Some have been wondering why we haven’t done it for a long time. But we needed to make that switch and likely in the not-too-distant future, we’ll look at softball, wrestling and anything we can do in that regard to help the cause.”
The second event is the highly anticipated Metallica concert on May 7. Babcock said he was told by Live Nation “that Blacksburg was the fastest-selling show on their tour and sold out like that.” There were 75,000 tickets sold, including 9,000 on the field.
"For those who have not seen a Metallica show in real life, they’re in for a treat in May.”
Babcock said he expects Tech to make over $1 million through “concessions and parking a little scrape on some tickets.”
Metallica will be responsible for replacing the sod at Lane Stadium so it is ready for graduation on May 16.
“We hope to make over $1 million on it. Hope and plan to,” Babcock said. “Metallica should make significantly more than that and then replacing the field and the expenses and things, yeah, that would be our net, if that makes sense.”
