I admit to being surprised by the new ACC TV deal that has apparently went down.

The back-and-forth bidding, which reached its final stages last week at the league’s spring meetings in Amelia Island, Fla., drove up ESPN’s rights fee from initial projections of about $120 million a year to $155 million, sources said, providing the ACC with more than double the revenue it was receiving from its previous football and basketball contracts.

ESPN’s increase was in response to an unexpectedly strong pursuit by Fox Sports and sources familiar with the negotiations say the bidding was neck-and-neck last week.

The ACC broke from its spring meetings without announcing a new deal, and the conference said a formal contract had not been finalized. But industry sources pegged a pending deal with ESPN at $1.86 billion over 12 years .

That annual figure of $155 million dwarfs the average of $67 million the league was getting from its previous media deals…

I’ve been thinking about it for the last 24 hours because there’s a lot to it.

One of the things I noted is that like the Big East deal with ESPN, it is all encompassing. In other words it appears to give up all rights including digital and mobile platform. That’s a significant difference from the SEC and Big 10 deals with ESPN that allows those conferences greater control over other and future revenue streams.

Obviously the ACC was greatly benefited by FoxSports making a strong push. That drove the price higher, but note that the initial projections started at $120 million/year. That put things at nearly $10 million/team (after you take into account what has to come out for the conference itself).

That’s a big win for ACC stability. Not that it would necessarily ward off a SEC raid for FSU and/or Clemson if the SEC so chose, but it keeps them competitive in things.

Hopefully it will also put an end to any wishful and useless thinking by Big East officials (and fans) over the delusional belief that the Big East might be able to lure any ACC teams to jump. That was a waste of time and highly unlikely before the new contract. Now it is a virtual guarantee.

It also means that with all rights to the ACC, any pipedream of an alliance and possible TV network with the ACC are dead.

This contract also bodes well for upcoming TV deals for the Pac-10 and Big 12. Especially if their alliance comes into being.

If FoxSports is serious, they will be bidding things up to keep what they have with both conferences and ESPN will not be able to keep their present deals with those conferences as low.

It may also dampen the Pac-10’s desire for their own expansion. After all, if they can significantly improve their TV deal as expected, the urge to get more money from a conference championship — and expanding to 12 — will be significantly diminished. The Pac-10’s history and geography is such that they are relatively insulated from threats of expansion even with only 10 members

Couple that with a potential alliance with the Big 12, and their expansion could pass since they would likely leave Colorado alone and the Big 12 would only have to consider expanding back to 12 with only 2 new members. With Utah available and something else from the Mountain West or C-USA.

For the Big East, this is all very bad news.

First, it sure seems like ESPN is also viewing this as protecting against the future loss of a BCS conference in the ESPN for their programming. Locking up the ACC along with the Big 10 and SEC gives them significant programming. That’s 38 teams just assuming the Big 10 only goes to 14  and the other two conferences don’t expand.

Assuming they keep even the present levels of commitment with the Big 12 and Pac-10, and the Big East looks very much like a luxury.

They might have some room for the football side with only 8 or 9 teams — assuming the Big East does its usual minimal effort to placate the football side. Basketball is going to get squeezed, though.

It would be even worse for the basketball only teams of the Big East if there is an actual split. There’s a persistent rumor that both sides may finally be sick of the situation as each side has festering resentment to the other.

The B-ball only schools hate that every move in the conference is seemingly for the benefit of the football schools. The football schools are sick of the fact that the b-ball only schools keep the Big East from going all the way in doing things that could possibly have stabilized the conference with football.

The thing is, the basketball side does not get (though, I think the Big East offices do) just how much closer to A-10 than ACC they would become without the football side. I mentioned this last week in the roundtable. Without the football side to improve/leverage the TV contract and keep the conference in the public eye for more than a few months when people pay any attention to college basketball (January to April), the basketball side is screwed.

Look at the A-10. They have some very good, even excellent teams with long traditions and even recent success — Xavier, Temple, St. Joe’s — yet they get little coverage as a conference. Individual teams get some. As long as they schedule well in the non-con. But no one sees the conference games.

There are so many conference games available, that a b-ball only conference — especially one made up primarily of small, private schools with limited national followings — are not going to get the same kind of coverage. Regardless of the media markets in which they are located.

That’s the problem, because that the conference slate is about the time when college football is over and attention starts shifting to college basketball from a casual fan and TV exposure perspective. So, yeah, you will see a Xavier-Florida game on ESPN. But no interest in showing a Xavier-Temple face-off.

That is what is staring at the Big East b-ball schools. They will see teams like ‘Nova, Marquette and Georgetown schedule good non-con games to get attention — and even play some in January and February for TV — but struggle in the conference games any traction.

Unfortunately, I do think that the Big East offices understand this. That is why they will do their damndest to hold the hybrid system together regardless of how many teams get raided. They see it as the way to serve both competing interests of their members.

They will try to placate the football schools by keeping things as close to the same as possible. Limiting expansion to the bare minimum in football and hoping none of the remaining football schools push too hard.

They will try to soothe the b-ball side with keeping the conference together and trying to explain their true economic realities.

Ultimately this new ACC deal only puts more pressure on Pitt, Syracuse and Rutgers to secure entry to the Big Something.