ACC Commissioner warns league members about chasing dollars and not value

Phillips spoke to the media Wednesday morning.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Wed Oct 25 12:58:05 GMT-04:00 2023

CHARLOTTE, NC – ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips spoke with the media at the ACC Basketball Tipoff in Charlotte Wednesday and touted the history, strength, and health of the league while also warning that the schools wanting to leave the conference are chasing the dollar and not value.

It’s been no secret that Clemson, Florida St., and UNC are aligned in looking elsewhere for a new home. Why? Media rights contracts have the ACC far behind conferences like the Big Ten and SEC in revenue, and in today’s world of college athletics, that puts a conference like the ACC at a competitive disadvantage.

Phillips tried to downplay many of those concerns during his remarks.

“I've never been more confident in the league than what we just went through over the last three or four months,” he said. “Let me articulate it a little bit further. First, we talked about having different distribution of revenue success initiatives that we made a public statement about in the spring, in May, after the board meeting. We have moved quickly on that and will distribute dollars differently for the first time. We listened to the membership on that.

“Listen, the expansion piece, as I indicated, academically, there's no one that can tell me or anyone else that those aren't three really good schools (Cal, Stanford, SMU) that fit the ACC. Athletically, two of them have led the Sears Director's Cup. One has dominated it, the other has been involved in it. Funnel more student-athletes from those two schools than any other, and also have had good history in a variety of other sports. They bring two new markets to us: San Francisco, the Bay Area, and Dallas Fort Worth.

We are a national conference. We've been a regional conference. Two years ago, would we have done this? Probably not, but times have changed, and you either get on the offensive or you don't.”

Phillips then said the league is in a good spot.

“Where is the health of the league? The league is healthy. The league is healthy,” he said. “At the end of the day, my job is to run the ACC and make sure it's healthy for the next 70 years as it has been the last 70 years. I cannot control individual feelings on campuses, but we have addressed head-on anything that our campuses have indicated. I feel great. I really do. I've never been more bullish. I can't say that I felt that way a year ago.”

Phillips then threw a shot at the schools wanting to leave.

“The narrative has run away about you have to make a certain amount of money to have success. You have to go chase the dollar,” he said. “I think it's about are we chasing, again, dollars, or are we chasing success? And that's what we're doing, we're chasing success with real student-athletes that are graduating at the highest level from enormously difficult institutions.

When this is all said and done, we'll have eight of the very best private institutions, ten of the very best public institutions. We'll be in great markets. That's where I think the league is, and that's kind of what we talked about during the meetings. It's not pollyanna-ish. It just isn't.”

However, the money driving college athletics today all centers around football, and Phillips was asked about adding three schools that don’t bring much from a football standpoint.

“I would just say this: Those two schools (Cal and Stanford) have had success in football in the past. David Shaw did an amazing job. They're going through a transition there,” he said. “Cal has had good football, as well, and SMU is really good. They may be at the G5 level, but you'll see them I think immediately perform well in our league.

“Again, you can look at a moment in time. I appreciate it very much and I understand that. But in totality, I feel really good about what they can do in the ACC, and so does the membership.”