ACC commissioner Jim Phillips on realignment rumors: ‘We’re all in this together’

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips addressed the league’s future following the conclusion of the league’s spring meetings Wednesday. “What I’ve been told (by athletic directors and presidents) is that we’re all in this together — emphatically,” he said. Here’s what you need to know:

Reports emerged this week that a group of seven ACC schools (Virginia Tech, Florida State, Clemson, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Virginia) have met together and with lawyers to examine the ACC’s grant of rights, which tethers the schools to each other and the league through 2036.
Phillips said he encourages universities to come to the ACC headquarters to examine the conference’s grant of rights. “That’s not a warning sign to me that something bad may happen, etcetera,” he said Wednesday.
On the group exploring the grant of rights, Phillips said, “That just isn’t news to me, per se. There’s not a conference in the country or institutions that haven’t talked about conference expansion and the landscape and what’s best.”

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips is speaking to reporters after a very interesting couple of days at league meetings:
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) May 17, 2023

The Athletic’s instant analysis:

What comes next

Everyone takes a deep breath. Seriously. It’s been an interesting and stressful few days in the ACC, and as we come to the end of it all, the main takeaway is this: We knew schools were examining the grant of rights to see how airtight it is, and now we know some of those schools have had those conversations amongst themselves. It’s not exactly shocking, but every decision feels heightened in a period of instability and realignment across the national landscape.

Does this mean those seven schools are going to actually challenge the grant of rights? We don’t know. They don’t know yet. Would it be soon or, say, six years from now? We don’t know that, either. But, as one ACC source told me last week, “If it were simple, everybody would have done it already.” — Auerbach

What Phillips said

The ACC board of directors will not vote next week on a new revenue-sharing model but “the board is excited about it,” Phillips said. The league is discussing weighted ways to reward on-field (or on-court) success, essentially allowing the schools that have the most success to eat more of what they themselves kill.

“We are better off together than a smaller subset in the sense that it’s been proven that national championships are great when you have multiple leagues competing for it, not just a couple.”

Backstory

On Tuesday, Florida State athletic director Michael Alford said the Seminoles are “thrilled” to be in the ACC and wanted to remain a league member, one day after reports emerged that the group of schools had been exploring ways to leave the conference. Alford also said league members were discussing potential revenue-sharing models to be implemented in the new 12-team College Football Playoff era during ACC spring meetings this week in Amelia Island, Fla.

“The ADs and the universities are very unified,” Alford told reporters. “So we’re thrilled about being in this league, and we want to stay in it.”

Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock confirmed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the seven schools have met together and had the discussions.

What Babcock and Radakovich said

“I would classify it as a number of conversations, usually in small groups, on interpretations of grant of rights, of bylaws of the league, of options that may be out there,” Babcock told The Times-Dispatch. “But as you know, the grant of rights has been looked at a lot of times by a lot of people.”

Babcock said the conversations weren’t as organized as many interpreted off of reports on Monday and that several discussions included subsets of the seven, not all seven together. After those conversations became public, there was essentially an airing of grievances, according to Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich.

“People had to say where they were and why do you feel that way,” Radakovich told reporters, adding that the growing revenue gap between the Big Ten and SEC and everyone else may impact ACC schools in myriad ways that would show up on the field or on the court. “We have this gap, and the gap is not just about money,” Radakovich said.

“I think it was less than ideal that it came out, but it’s been a catalyst for some real conversation and maybe getting to things a little faster that we’ve been working on as the ACC,” Babcock said.