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Jim Phillips presents strong front, acknowledges changing landscape

ACC commissioner addresses uncertain time in league’s future to open football media day event

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips addressed the league's media at the beginning of ACC Kickoff on Wednesday.
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips addressed the league's media at the beginning of ACC Kickoff on Wednesday. (Jim Dedmon/USA Today Sports Images)

CHARLOTTE – The ACC is strong and it’s not going to sell its identity as a league that values education and every sport that it sponsors, commissioner Jim Phillips said on Wednesday at the Westin Charlotte to begin the ACC Kickoff.

“It remains my belief there is no better conference in the country,” Phillips said in his opening statement. “College athletics has faced criticism by some who forget that we field teams beyond football and men's basketball. College athletics happens within the context of higher education on campuses that pride themselves on diverse offerings academically and in extracurriculars.

“Those who clamor for a pay-for-play system alone disregard the collegiate principles of diverse offerings.”

Phillips’ address of the league’s media made for the most-anticipated moment for the ACC since … maybe the announcement of the ACC Network at the 2018 event. The second-year commissioner, most recently the athletics director at Northwestern, this is seemingly a crucial moment for the future of the league.

College football was thrown for a loop at the beginning of the month with news that UCLA and USC are leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024 – one year earlier than Oklahoma and Texas’ departure for the SEC, realignment news that is so last year.

With the success – re: monetarily – of the Big Ten and SEC Networks, the revenue gap between those leagues and the other Power 5 conferences is already sizable and expected to enlarge over the next few years. That leads to conjecture that the ACC’s well-positioned football programs like Clemson and Miami will jettison themselves from the conference at first crack of the league’s grant of rights.

“College athletics lives at a three-way intersection of competition, education, and entertainment, and all three must exist in a balanced way,” Phillips said.

These were Phillips’ first public comments since the latest batch of realignment news. He faced questions about the future of the league and a widening revenue gap against the SEC and Big Ten.

“All metrics, we are one of the leaders in the country in all of those areas I talked about, except the revenue piece of it, and that's been brought to light with the recent move of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten,” Phillips said. “A year ago we were talking about the same thing, and so truly over the last 18 months it's been my primary focus. We were able to get distribution done.

“We have some other things coming forward relative to what we're going to do in partnership with some revenue consultants that I'm really excited about being able to release that maybe by the end of the month.”

The projections of a mega-conference structure with the SEC and Big Ten calling all of the shots doesn’t seem to be inevitable, Phillips said – though, it’s not like he would say it publicly if he did feel that was even likely.

“I don't know that it's the only solution,” Phillips said. “I think you have to look creatively. We've been doing that over the last year. We're going to continue to do that.”

Phillips’ remarks on Wednesday morning were measured to an extent, while still painting the picture of a league that’s in a precarious situation.

Which is maybe what we should’ve expected all along. Phillips wasn’t going to take to the podium and lambast Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren for breaking the Alliance – ironically more of a joke now than it was a year ago.

Nor was Phillips going to waltz onto the stage and pull a Brett Yormark – the Big 12 commissioner declared last week that his league was “open for business.”

“If we take that path that it's only going to be about football and basketball, that's shame on all of us,” Phillips said. “It just is. I understand. I understand the criticism that comes with that, and that's okay. I think it's up for public debate and opinion about what's right. I know, I understand about getting lapped. I do. I get it.”

This is a waiting game for Phillips, and the ACC’s grant of rights affords him some – not a lot, but some – time to pave the ACC’s future.

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