The Atlantic Coast Conference is a college sports league in the United States. Member schools field teams in football, basketball, and other sports, and the league sells the right to televise those games.
Those games are carried by a Regional Sports Network (RSN). The league is the competition. The network is the channel that shows it in a particular part of the country.
What the League Organizes
- Membership. Universities join the league and play one another under its schedule.
- Championships. The league crowns its own winners, separate from a national tournament.
- Media rights. The league sells the television package. A network then carries the games.
The League and the Network
| Compared | The League | The Regional Network |
| What it is | The group of schools and the competition among them | The channel that televises the games |
| A game | Scheduled and played under league rules | Shown to viewers in that network’s region |
| Who pays whom | The league sells the rights | The network buys the rights and sells advertising |