Charlotte, North Carolina – Commissioner Jim Phillips believes strongly in the future of the Atlantic Coast Conference amid the uncertainty of realignment and widespread changes to the college athletics model itself.
He was also ready to tell everyone why when the league opened its preseason football media days on Monday.
Exchanging his normally reserved comments for a more assertive message, Phillips praised the gains made of years of work to improve ACC’s financial situation. He promised the league will fight “as long as necessary” legal cases against Florida State and Clemson as those member schools challenge the league’s ability to charge hundreds of millions of dollars for leaving the conference. And he came with details, from dollar amounts to recent national bond counts.
“This league is better than the narrative that’s being given now because people want to talk about what could happen instead of what’s happening,” Phillips said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The league opened its four-day “ACC Kickoff” event Monday in an expanded format following the additions of California and Stanford from the Pac-12, and SMU from the American Athletic Conference. Phillips, preparing for his fourth full season leading the ACC, pulled back a bit of the curtain on a league he described as “aggressive” in battling a growing revenue gap behind its Big Ten and Southeastern Conference peers.
“Our goal has not been to do this in the public eye,” Phillips told the AP. “Our goal is to do this internally, be aggressive and look for every possible avenue to increase revenue. , not just what we have done and what we will do in the future.”
For example, Phillips said the addition of three new schools to the league will create $600 million in additional incremental revenue gains through the ACC’s current ESPN deal in effect through 2036. Additionally, a league that has long relied on distribution equitable conditions caused Cal and Stanford to receive reduced payments. (about 30%) for the first seven seasons, before gradually increasing those amounts up to a full share in Season 10, while SMU is forgoing nine years of TV money.
Furthermore, there are this season’s launch of a success-oriented incentive model with schools able to retain more money based on their own postseason success rather than sending it to conference coffers to be divided equally. Phillips said this could amount to $20 million to $25 million in additional payments to schools based on success in the College Football Playoff, bowl games and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Add in corporate partnerships and sponsorships of marquee events, like the high-profile men’s basketball tournament earlier this year, and Phillips is pointing to multiple revenue streams to improve the bottom line.
“I think we did a very good job in a challenging situation to generate the revenue that we did, new revenue,” Phillips said. “Also being able to unanimously accept disproportionate revenues for the first time with the successful initiative and (expansion), that requires alignment.
“The idea is that we have to continue this type of momentum in the future. So we have to be creative.”
The good news is that these measures come amid years of record revenues, even though the ACC lags behind what many now consider a Power Two with the Big Ten and SEC.
According to tax documents, the ACC distributed an average of $44.8 million to its 14 football-playing members (Notre Dame receives a partial share as a football independent) and $706.6 million in total revenue for the season 2022-23. This marked a 13.6% increase in payments over the previous year, with Phillips saying increases in the league’s TV contract accounted for about two-thirds of that increase.
Additionally, TV revenue increased from about $288.6 million in the 2018-19 fiscal year, before the launch of the ACC Network, to $481.7 million in 2022-23, an increase of 66.9 %.
Overall, the ACC ranked third behind the Big Ten ($879.9 million in revenue, $60.3 million average pay) and the SEC ($852.6 million, $51.3 million million) in the most recent records, and ahead of the smaller Big 12 ($510.7 million, $44.2 million). Of that quartet, the SEC (six), Big Ten (two) and ACC (two) combined to win all 10 CFP championships, leading to their expansion to a 12-team field this season.
“All the data says it’s a top-three conference,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said of the Mustangs’ new home.
And these revenue numbers don’t take into account the recent wave of realignment that destroyed the Pac-12 and scattered its pieces across the ACC, Big Ten and Big 12, as well as sending the Big 12’s two major football brands (Texas and Oklahoma) ) to the SEC.
Still, Phillips knows the league faces challenges that go beyond money.
He called the actions filed by FSU It is Clemson “extremely harmful, disruptive and damaging” during their annual forum. Most notably, these schools are challenging the league’s media rights agreement, which gives the ACC control of media rights to any school that tries to leave during the period of its deal with ESPN. League schools signed this agreement prior to the launch of the ACC Network in 2019.
The league has also sued those schools to enforce the agreement in a legal dispute that has no end in sight and leaves everyone likely stuck in their positions.
“I can say that we will fight to protect the ACC and our members for as long as necessary,” Phillips said emphatically during the forum.
Asked later about his comments, Phillips told the AP: “It’s important for our members to know, as well as the country, where we stand.”
Still, there were the strange optics that came with Florida State being among the schools featured after Phillips’ forum. For Seminoles coach Mike Norvell, there was little to say other than trying to win a second straight title in a league that FSU is also pushing to get out of.
“Life is full of distractions,” Norvell said. “At the end of the day, you stay focused on the things that are in front of you and, ultimately, the things that you can control. I am fortunate to have the responsibility to help lead this team and that is where my focus goes. to be.”
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