ACC commissioner Jim Phillips would have preferred unanimity. Of course he wanted that.
But he didn’t get it, because three university presidents and chancellors voted against expansion and specifically against adding Stanford, Cal and SMU as members. They were outvoted, 12-3, and the new schools were officially added and announced by lunchtime Friday. But those three dissenters — Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina — have created a fascinating dynamic for this conference moving forward.
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How do you create unity? How do you lead? How do you work with those who have been disgruntled and might remain so?
“When this board comes together, they don’t always agree on issues, but there’s great respect and there’s great admiration,” Phillips said Friday. “In the end, there is great collaboration. Even today. As we talked about this, it didn’t matter whether you were on the majority side, the 80 percent that voted for it, or the dissenting side. … Whichever side of this thing you were on, there’s been an appreciation for the process, the transparency of the process, and that you move on now that decisions have been made. There’s no question in my mind that I believe that that’s what’s going to happen with our group.”
Over the past few weeks, Phillips has spent quite a bit of time with those who ultimately voted against expansion. He listened to their concerns and answered their questions. He tried to provide and update financial models to make them more appealing to everyone. He convinced NC State — which had been initially opposed — to vote for expansion, which gave him the 12th yes that he needed.
But Phillips also believes that “there’s something in this for everybody.” And that includes the ones who didn’t vote to do it.
They will still be able to bring in additional revenue because of what Phillips calls a success initiative program. It will reward schools for reaching certain benchmarks, such as winning the league’s football championship or reaching the College Football Playoff and the like. Such incentives are expected to total $10 million for a school that hits all of them in one year. This would reward those who invest in football and back it up with on-field success; it is a direct response to the schools who have complained about falling behind their peers in the Big Ten and SEC, an opportunity to work toward closing the gap.
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“Maybe it’s not enough. Maybe it is,” Phillips said. “But we are doing everything we can within the conference to address that piece of it. With the success initiative, let’s let that play out. Let’s see what that looks like. Let’s see how much revenue is generated and distributed to those that maybe have more success in football.
“I want to get this structure in place and let us move forward.”
Phillips said that he and the presidents left Friday morning’s meeting in a good place and that he personally believed it was a very good outcome for the ACC. “Whether you voted for it or not, you’re going to benefit from this new arrangement,” he said.
That is, indeed, a critical piece of the puzzle moving forward. It’s why none of the schools that voted against expansion went nuclear about the final decision. Florida State and UNC put out statements politely owning their dissenting votes. FSU and Clemson both also made sure to explicitly welcome the new members, because it was never about them being personally opposed to the athletic programs at Stanford, Cal and SMU. It was about them not believing they added enough value for the ACC.
FSU statement today is honest — Seminoles did vote against expansion: pic.twitter.com/RZ6kE08URj
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 1, 2023
The new pool of revenue created by the three new schools that will be used for the success initiative plan may feel like a band-aid. It addresses revenue problems identified by Florida State and others, who fear that they will fall behind their colleagues in the Big Ten and SEC by as much as $30 million by the end of the decade. But the band-aid provides essentially a short-term fix, pulling from the revenue that SMU is forgoing for nine years and from the partial shares that Cal and Stanford are accepting for a period of years. Taking some extra money off the top only works when the three new members aren’t three full members taking their full shares — which will happen before the end of the current contract with ESPN, which runs through 2036.
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The band-aid won’t matter if Florida State or Clemson tries to break the grant of rights and leave the ACC sometime soon. A few extra million dollars isn’t going to stop them if they believe they can get to the Big Ten or SEC and ensure tens of millions of dollars more every single year. So, ultimately, it really doesn’t matter that they voted no on this. The vote wasn’t for them. It was for everybody else.
Friday’s move strengthens the ACC in large part because it increases its size. The league will now have 17 full-time members, plus Notre Dame.
“It also provides some stability. It just does,” Phillips said. “Look at next summer and where folks are going to be. At the ACC, we will have 18 members, 17 full-time in football. The Big Ten will have 18 members. The Big 12 and the SEC will have 16 members. That gives you strength and it gives you stability, and it gives you the ability to make sure that if anything happens with your league and a school wants to go explore something else … you feel very good about the position.”
It’s essentially backfilling before you need to, and it’s smart. We all saw what just happened with the Pac-12 — and how different things could be for its remaining members had the league expanded after USC and UCLA left or even in advance of its media rights negotiations this summer. But it dwindled down to eight, then seven, then four and now two. The ACC believes there is strength in numbers, and there likely is.
Ultimately, that’s how the ACC moves forward. It has secured its present and its near future, despite the dissent and despite the pain of cross-country travel. It hasn’t necessarily secured its long-term outlook, but what league can say that they have in this current climate anyway? So much remains uncertain and unsettled.
So, the ACC decided to make a move, as opposed to staying stagnant. It opted to work through the aftermath of a 12-3 vote instead of delaying until it could guarantee unanimity. As Phillips said Friday, “You either get busy or you get left behind.”
(Photo of Jim Phillips: Nell Redmond / AP)