ACC commissioner feels league can bridge revenue gap with B1G, SEC

Jim Phillips kicked off the ACC Football Kickoff with his state of the ACC address. (ACC photo)

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Tue Jul 25 11:48:27 GMT-04:00 2023

CHARLOTTE – ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips says the conference is dedicated to bridging the revenue gap between his conference and the Big Ten and SEC.

Phillips met with the media during the first day of the ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte and discussed that revenue gap, keeping programs happy, and the status of the conference nationally. He opened by saying the league’s relationship with ESPN is strong.

“We remain in constant communication with Disney and ESPN, as there is no single business partnership in our industry that is valued more than with a conference's media rights holder. In certainly one of the most turbulent times in history for both media and college sports, I and the ACC have never felt better about our relationship than we do today,” Phillips said. “Our commitment to collaborate on way the ACC from a revenue and exposure standpoint has been unwavering.

“The work that's been done over this past year, particularly in the last six months, as the Disney leadership and ESPN has been solidified, has been incredibly important to our partnership are. Jimmy Pitaro, Burke Magnus, Roz Durant, Nick Dawson and their entire team have been terrific, and collectively we have, one, agreed on a comprehensive, mutually beneficial growth and innovation strategy moving forward. And, second, put in motion several priority initiatives, the combination of which we believe will transform our conference for years to come.

“Our schools and fans will immediately benefit from significantly increased ACC football television exposure on ABC and ESPN platforms. Elevated production value and innovative creative approaches tied to those ABC broadcasts. A commitment to greater integration of ACC schools across all aspects of the network: Production, programming, storytelling, sales, and marketing, and a collective mission to enhance and grow this unique and very valuable are shared venture.”

The ACC spring meetings in early May were contentious, with more than one school complaining about the current media rights deal, but Phillips said things have calmed down in the last two months.

“First, I'm proud that our president and chancellors and our athletic directors continue to have healthy, honest, and direct conversations about working together as we collectively navigate the future,” he said. “I'm well aware of the narrative and stories surrounding the ACC and our members as well as the frustrations of some of our schools on our financials, but these are not new. The initiatives I just mentioned combined with future endeavors are designed to ensure that the ACC remains a healthy and vibrant conference that competes at the highest level, and is capable of winning nine national titles like this past year, if not more.

“At the end of May following an analysis and discussion that took place throughout the past year, the board announced its endorsement of a success incentive initiative that will begin during the 2024/25 academic year. Under this initiative financial distribution enhancements based on team performances from revenue-generating postseason competition will allow our schools to invest and achieve additional revenue.”

Phillips then went on to tout the accomplishments of the league while also saying that there are initiatives in the planning stage to increase revenue.

“I would say this, the league is healthy. It just is. Certainly, there is rumblings -- again, we all saw what happened in the springtime. But the group has come together in a way to me that demonstrates they want to work together to find solutions,” Phillips said. “We've worked with Fish Bait on our eight-point plan generating new additional revenue. The ESPN partnership is really strong, and ESPN and the ACC are completely motivated together to generate additional dollars. You see that the conference presidents and chancellors have initiated the success incentive initiative, which is going to distribute dollars in a disproportionate way. We've never gone down that road before in the ACC, and I'm not sure many conferences have.

“So revenue generation continues to be a priority. But let me be clear also, this league is third right now in revenue as we go forward into wherever the next TV deals are for other conferences where, we've looked at it. We've had multiple TV consultants. Third is certainly a good position, but we want to gain and gain traction financially in order to close the gap with obviously the SEC and the Big Ten, who have leapfrogged everyone.

“I think one of the presidents said it best, are we chasing a dollar amount, or are we chasing success? I think there's a difference there. If you are chasing a number, it takes you down a different path. If you are chasing success competitively in football and basketball and all of our sports, then I think every institution has an idea of what they need.”

TigerNet asked Phillips if he feels the league can bridge that revenue deficit. I mentioned Florida State and Clemson in particular, and does he feel like there is a way to bridge the gap.

“Instead of trying to get a number, trying to bridge it as far as you can. How you get it done? You work collaboratively. That's what we've done,” he said. “Those two institutions have been terrific to work with. I mean, they have great leadership. Rick McCullough is a wonderful guy. Jim Clements is a wonderful guy. They love sports and their institutions, and I know they also love the ACC and are trying to figure a way through.

“But it's all of our schools, right? All of our schools are incentivized to make sure that we have as healthy of a financial portfolio as we possibly can. After the spring, if we wouldn't have had any discussions or we wouldn't have come out with a success incentive initiative program, I may have felt differently, but the regularity of which the board is meeting now and the regularity of our ADs meeting, et cetera, and how good ESPN has been, they understand the volatility that there is, but they also are looking to grow financially based on some of their recent events.

“So you have a lot of mutually beneficial outcomes in this thing, so staying together, working collaboratively, working strategically, and we have some other things that we're working on I can't address with this group right now, that are pretty exciting to try to address that revenue gap.”