Notre Dame Football is one of the few programs in the country to have remained independent for its entire existence. Never has their football program been a full conference member anywhere, and only recently did the Fighting Irish’s programs in other sports make the transition away from independence and toward the ACC.
However, things are changing, and fast. This major wave of conference realignment is potentially more impactful than any other in the history of the sport and could see the full collapse of at least one Power Five conference. This seems to be the end of Notre Dame's run outside of a conference, and really it's been signaled that way for a few years with the “scheduling agreement” reached in 2014.
When realignment is finished, there's good reason to believe the Fighting Irish may wind up a full member of the ACC, and here are two reasons that Notre Dame should do so.
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Why Notre Dame Football Must Join ACC
2. Allows Notre Dame to maintain dominance
Counting the 2020 ACC Championship, which Notre Dame participated in as part of a modified agreement in the midst of the pandemic, Notre Dame currently sits at an impressive 39-9 against ACC opponents since reaching that original scheduling agreement in 2014. At present, it seems the only ACC team that may be able to threaten Notre Dame should they join would be Clemson, at least in the long term, though schools like Pitt and Wake Forest, the 2021 ACC Championship participants, also present challenges in the short term.
This more or less solidifies Notre Dame's path to at the very least a New Year's Six bowl appearance most years, if not every. That kind of stability may appeal to the Fighting Irish, especially since it means they're almost guaranteed a place in the conversation for the College Football Playoff for at least the majority of the season. For a program that has made two trips to the College Football Playoff while independent and has heard the naysayers mention how it would be easier for them to do so more often if they were in a conference, they may agree.
1. Money
Not the money they'd receive from the ACC, because they'd get significantly more every year if they were to join the Big Ten, like close to $40 million more per year by the end of the decade. No, the money here is the money they'd have to shell out to break their contract with the ACC as far as their other sports go. Every ACC school, Notre Dame included, is currently locked into a media rights contract with the conference that lasts until 2036.
While, yes, it would be cheaper for Notre Dame to do so than other schools, considering their football program has a media rights agreement with NBC instead that lasts until 2025, it would still be far from cheap to do so, and it would have to be a calculated risk to break that contract. College football, unlike most other big-time sports in this country, is home to a lot of financial caution, with few schools willing to throw everything at a potential payday for fear of damaging their reputation as an institution, something that rings especially true at a place like Notre Dame.
The Fighting Irish are a national brand, and it's not as if the program doesn't reel in loads of money regardless of its independent status. For Notre Dame football, the question only lies in whether they could earn enough to cover the losses of breaching their contract with the ACC, and if not, you can fully expect their football program to eventually join the conference.
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