Thursday marks the fifth anniversary of the ACC Network, launched on Aug. 22, 2019. That’s remarkable for a number of reasons, from the initial doubts over if the network would ever launch to the way it had to adapt to COVID-19 shutdowns less than a year into its life to the radical current changes with the conference (from expansion with Cal, Stanford, and SMU to grant-of-rights lawsuits against the conference from Florida State and Clemson).

Ahead of that anniversary, three key ACCN figures spoke to AA. Those would be Aaron Katzman, the network’s coordinating producer from 2019-2023, Mike Cambareri, who took on that role in 2023 and still holds it, and Jeramy Michiaels, ESPN senior director of programming and acquisitions, who has overseen day-to-day ACCN operations since 2021 and been a key contact between the network and schools.

Part I: The launch

Katzman told AA the launch was particularly special for him.

“It was truly an experience of a lifetime. You know, it’s very rare this day and age to start something from the ground floor, and watch it go from zero to an on-air product. So that’s really something that will forever be a career highlight for me. ”

Katzman said his involvement began in early 2019, but the network groundwork was already laid at that point.

“I came on board, I want to say it was seven months before the network launched. I had started discussions with, at the time, Amy Rosenfeld, who was running the network, probably nine months before. And I think we even had a meeting over a year before just to get a sense for what the network was going to be and I had expressed some interest. But I really jumped into the deep end of the pool about seven months before the launch of the network, and there was a good amount of the executive staff that had been in place far before I came on.”

He said there was a ton of preparation done well before the launch.

“We had such a great team with a diverse set of of thoughts and experiences that we kind of all put our heads together. I mean, I remember we spent months, whether it was on ESPN’s campus or on offsites, brainstorming everything from our talent pool to the look of the furniture in the studio to what the theme of the network would be.”

And Katzman said it was an intense time ahead of the launch, but one he fondly remembers.

“It was like running a 400-meter dash on loop from January until the network launch, but smiling while we were doing it because everyone sort of had the same angle in mind and the pride of being able to, all of us that were a part of it at the start, to feel like we had our fingerprints on the beginning of a brand-new network,” he said. “We loved it, and we were going home at night and texting on group text ‘Oh, hey, I just thought of this,’ or coming in the next morning and saying ‘Last night when I was eating dinner, I was thinking…’ We spent so much time together, the kind of core group of people launching the network, that it quickly became a little bit of a second family as we were gearing up for the launch.”

Katzman started at ESPN in 2005. Some of his previous work included time as the lead producer on the college basketball College GameDay , time as a producer on the football College GameDay , and work on golf and baseball events. He said that all factored into what he did at ACCN.

“For me specifically, it was sort of taking all of my experiences. When we were talking about, football staffing or football shows, some of the experiences that I had had with GameDay , both on the road and in studio, had me saying, ‘Okay, yeah, nothing’s going to be College GameDay , but what can we do to to be the best ACC Network we can be?’ So it was sort of relying on previous experiences to help shape what we would come up with for the network.”

He said there was a recognition in building on what ESPN had done elsewhere, but still making ACCN unique.

“I think the goal was to make ACC Network ACC Network, not to try to mimic College Game Day on the ESPN side, not try to mimic SEC Network or Big Ten Network or anything else that was out there, but ‘How can we make ACC network unique?’ You have a core set of schools that have incredible fan bases and platforms in the ACC. And instead of trying to be like another network, how can we celebrate the conference and the schools, the diversity of the schools, from Syracuse to Miami at the time to Pittsburgh and Louisville.

“The ACC in 2019 was unlike any other conference out there because of just the geographic splits between north-south and Midwest, you had a little bit of everything. So it wasn’t really trying to take anything from any of the other platforms or networks. It was trying to figure out how to make ACC Network unique to the ACC.”

Michiaels came in a little later, joining ACCN in 2021. But he had previously been with ESPN, and was working on SEC Network in 2019. He said when he moved to ACCN, he understood the importance of both bringing in what they’d learned elsewhere while also differentiating themselves.

“I was on the team that launched and maintained the SEC Network at the time. I moved over to the ACC Network in May of 2021. So Rosalyn Durant and Stacie McCollum were sort of the leadership team that that kind of built and launched the ACC Network. I took a lot of the learnings that I had from my time working on the SEC Network, but also understanding that the ACC is different and it’s a different fan base, it’s a different set of schools.

“So I was taking the experience that I had from the SEC Network and bringing it over to the ACC Network midstream after the network had launched. But from my vantage point, and working with Ros and Stacy when the ACC Network was being developed, there was a blueprint from not only the SEC Network, but the Longhorn Network as well.”

He said college sports is a crucial part of ESPN’s overall identity.

“ESPN had a lot of experience in this space, and really, college sports in general, not just on a 24/7 network that we operated. We’ve been a part of college sports since the beginning of ESPN. It is really core to the DNA of of what we do at ESPN.”

As for that initial launch, Katzman said he was pleased with what they were able to come up with to differentiate themselves.

“It was a great way to get started. You know, there’s no conference that is more well-rounded, both academically and athletically, than the ACC. And we spent a lot of time trying to find ways to celebrate that, from the look of the graphics package that we wanted to be sharp and have a sophisticated feel to it, to the way we were going to structure our shows to celebrate the depth of the of the athletic success across the conference.

“So, as we were launching the network, we had a morning show that celebrated sports all across the ACC footprint: if a women’s soccer team had a big win or won the national championship, we wanted to talk about that. We wanted to bring on a a star player or coach to to congratulate them, to celebrate it. All while keeping a watchful priority on football and basketball, which certainly were the drivers of the conference.”

Read on for more on ACCN’s initial programming, how they dealt with COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020 and beyond, and more.

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