PC: ACC Commish Jim Phillips Talks ACC Hoops And Much More

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips answered questions from the media at the 2022 ACC Men's Basketball Tipoff.

Opening Statement...
Good morning. It's certainly great to be back together in Charlotte, and I want to start by saying thanks really to each and every one of you in attendance today, and the important role in covering our student-athletes, coaches, programs, and conference.

Know you all have a tremendous amount going on in your lives, both personally and professionally. That's just the times we live in. For you to be here means an awful lot to the conference.

Our prayers continue to go out to those affected by Hurricane Ian which traveled through much of our footprint. We thank all of those first responders, volunteers, and countless organizations working together to bring relief following this really terrible natural disaster.

Two weeks ago, the ACC family lost Tom Zimorski after the Clemson-NC State football game. He was a longtime referee and replay official. Tom's dedicated service to the game of college football was incredible, but nothing compares to what an amazing person he was to all of us that knew him.

Charlene Curtis, one of the true pioneers in the sport of women's basketball, passed away in August. Charlene's kindness and class resonated throughout her life. She continues to be truly an inspiring spirit again to all of us who knew Charlene.

Our thoughts continue to be with the Zimorski and Curtis families. Thanks for allowing me to start our conference that way.

Three months ago, we gathered here to celebrate the start of the 2022-23 academic year. Since then, I've enjoyed seeing our student-athletes, coaches, administrators and many more during my weekly football travels.

Looking forward to the second half of the football season, our upcoming fall championships, and why we're all here today, the start of the men's and women's basketball seasons, which begins on November 7.

It's been an outstanding start this year for the ACC, with our teams enjoying tremendous success across all of our fall sports. In football, four ACC teams are ranked in the associated press and five in the USA Today Sports AFCA coaches' poll, with two more receiving votes, having seven in the top 35 or so. It's really a nice position for us following last year.

The ACC has four teams ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in their respective fall Olympic sports. In the national polls, whether you look at men's cross country, women's cross country, field hockey, men's soccer or women's soccer, no conference has more ranked teams.

Five teams are ranked in each of the women's and men's cross country polls. All seven field hockey teams have been ranked throughout the season. Seven teams are ranked in each of the men's and women's soccer polls, and volleyball has three teams in the top 11 in the country.

We look forward to watching the second half of our fall sports seasons unfold as our winter sports get rolling.

Looking specifically at basketball, there's always great excitement surrounding what continues to be the best conference in the country for men and women's basketball. As I think back to last year, the narrative throughout the men's regular season was kind of what a down year it was for the ACC, yet we finished the NCAA Tournament with five ACC teams compiling the most wins of any league, the best winning percentage of any multibid league, making up half of the Final Four field, and really as we all witnessed, came a few points or maybe a play away from winning another National Championship.

On the women's side, our teams continue to receive well-deserved respect. Last year eight teams were selected to the NCAA Tournament. The fourth consecutive postseason in which eight ACC teams were selected, leading all conferences each of those years.

Two of our eight teams last year were No. 1 seeds, four advanced to the Sweet 16, and we were the only conference to have at least three teams in the regional semifinals in each of the last eight NCAA Tournaments.

Louisville and NC State each reached the Elite 8, and Louisville advanced to the Final Four.

I won't say anything about where they sent NC State either this morning.

This year we welcome some new and familiar faces to our ACC basketball head coaching ranks. Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, Virginia women's basketball; Megan Gebbia, Wake Forest women's basketball; and really what's neat sometimes, these stars align, we have coaches now leading their respective alma maters, Brooke Wyckoff, Florida State women's basketball; Felisha Legette-Jack, Syracuse women's basketball; Jon Scheyer, Duke men's basketball; and Kenny Payne, Louisville men's basketball.

In my conversations with our men's and women's coaches and student-athletes, there is significant anticipation and no shortage of enthusiasm as we both and all of us look ahead to the season.

The incredible success of this league is a tribute to our incredible student-athletes. This year we return a wealth of experience in men's basketball, including a number of student-athletes who could have gone on to the professional ranks, instead making the choice to return to school.

Including those that each of you have already well documented, as I've seen a lot of what you've written. North Carolina's Armando Bacot and Caleb Love; Miami's Isaiah Wong; North Carolina State's Terquavion Smith; and Florida State's Matthew Cleveland.

In women's hoops, we return 13 women's basketball All-ACC honorees, including six from first-team and four of the individual award winners. Between ACC men's and women's basketball, there will be 285 conference games, 28 ACC Big Ten challenge games, and a full slate of non-conference match-ups before we begin March Madness.

As part of the postseason, the ACC will celebrate three straight weeks of tournament play at the Greensboro Coliseum. The longest running women's basketball tournament in the country will be played March 1st through the 5th, followed by the New York Life ACC men's basketball tournament from March 7 through the 11th, and a week later our conference will host the NCAA men's basketball first and second rounds.

Let me also take this opportunity to communicate that we look forward to our continued partnership in the years ahead with the wonderful city of Greensboro hosting future ACC championships.

Throughout the regular season and postseason, our television partners will once again ensure that fans can watch all their favorite ACC teams. I'd like to personally recognize ESPN, Raycom, and Bally Sports for mutually agreeing to having ACC Network become the broadcast home beginning this year for the ACC women's basketball and baseball tournaments.

It is an important step that we enhance these premier events and provide much-needed access to our fans. Appreciate deeply the multiple meetings and conversations we had to make this change happen.

Before opening it up to questions this morning, I'd like to touch on a few additional topics. A lot has happened since we were last together in July.

In August we announced that FishBait Solutions will serve as the league's chief revenue and business innovation consultant. The partnership is focused on strategically identifying and maximizing revenue through new and existing partnerships, as well as developing innovative ideas and solutions that drive value for the league and our membership.

As of last week, FishBait has been to each of our 15 campuses to meet with our athletic directors and their external staffs. They are here today with us, and they will be back here next week as part of our ACC fall joint group meetings.

From a revenue perspective, we're in the process of finalizing the financials from last year, and as expected, our schools will receive a sizable increase following the ACC Network reaching full distribution last December. We are proud to have exceeded our initial projections, resulting in additional revenue to our schools.

In collaboration with our fellow FBS conferences, we are nearing the completion of a 365-day football calendar that began this last spring. The comprehensive calendar will allow decisions to be made holistically, especially surrounding student-athlete health, safety, academics, recruiting, and more.

In recent weeks, the 365-day calendar is being utilized to assist in the ongoing discussions surrounding an expanded college football playoff format. We remain completely supportive of the future CFP expansion and are grateful for the ongoing discussions throughout the year to ultimately resolve many of our concerns.

Our office remains committed to our ongoing priorities and strategic initiatives across a variety of areas, including ACC football, the relocation of the league's headquarters after 69 years, ACC revenue and brand enhancement, the ongoing success of the ACC Network, the direct involvement of the ACC in the future of college sports via federal legislation, the ACC transformation committee, the college football playoff.

I'll spare you the other 150 areas. It seemed like we're all involved in the world of college athletics today.

Speaking of the future ACC league headquarters, our new office is just a few blocks away from here in uptown Charlotte. This is an amazing and vibrant community that not only meets but exceeds the needs of the ACC, and we look forward to officially joining the Charlotte community as it will provide benefits to our student-athletes, schools, and conferences, and to ensure we are in the best position for immediate and long-term future.

As I said at the beginning, the ACC is enjoying tremendous success, and we continue to be bullish about our future and our prominence in one of the very best all-around conferences in the nation.

Again, my sincere thank you for all of you being here this morning, and with that, I'll open it up for questions.

Been a lot of talk lately on the transformation committee and elsewhere about championship access. Where do you stand and what's best for the ACC as these discussions happen by either expanding the NCAA Tournament, men's basketball tournament, or potentially changing one-bid access and things like that?
It's time to look at that. It's time to look at the expansion of all conference championships -- not conference championships but National Championships. To your point on the men's basketball tournament or women's basketball tournament, the greatest championship we have are those tournaments as far as just the access currently. You have 32 AQs, and then you have 34, 36 at-large bids.

I think where we're needing some dialogue is in not only looking at the men's basketball and women's basketball tournament, but some of the other tournaments that have fewer opportunities. When you have this compression that I feel that we have to address in the sense that you have a lot of schools that are spending a tremendous amount of resources in sports and not having a chance to access those championships, I certainly felt like we deserved more than five ACC teams last year on the men's side, and I felt like we deserved more than eight on the women's side.

But the numbers are the numbers. Again, my perspective and our perspective of the ACC, not interested in cutting back those AQs. Those AQs matter. That's part of the broad-based opportunities we have in Division I sports is the lower resource conferences and the higher resource conferences can all gain access.

But baseball, I certainly felt like we had several teams that should have gotten in, and in baseball, the team that the committee indicated was the last team in won the National Championship.

I look at NC State in that example where they deserved to be in.

The time is now. The time is now as we're looking at the overall structure of the NCAA, and one of their responsibilities has been championships. So I'm in favor of looking at it, and I really would like us to expand.

But -- and I'll finish here. The but is you have to look at what does that do to the season, how many more games are we talking about, what are the financial implications, what does it do to conference championship season.

Similar to what we've done in the CFP, I think we'll have to do the same across the sports that are sponsored from an NCAA level.

Commissioner, Adam Silver recently proposed changing the MEA draft limit from 19 to 18. What kind of implications do you think that will have on college basketball where a player doesn't necessarily have to come to college for one year or go to the G-League, they can go straight from high school to the NBA. Does that have an impound effect on the ACC?
I think I've said it before, maybe not recently. Every young man and young woman coming out of high school deserves and opportunity to do what they want to do, and some want to go straight to professional sports.

The more opportunity we allow those young men and women to do that, I think it's healthy. I really do. I don't think that that hurts the college game. I just don't. Some would say that student-athletes that come for a year, that may hurt the game. I'm not sure.

My point is that I really believe that those individuals that are good enough to play at that kind of level deserve the chance to either go pro right out of high school or come to college and let them choose.

This last weekend, a freshman on the Pitt basketball team became the third player in the last 21 months to face criminal charges. Do you as the commissioner of the ACC find this a very disturbing trend? Is this something that worries you at all?
We're always concerned anytime any of those types of situations happen at any of our 15 institutions. It's an institutional matter, and I have great confidence in the leadership at Pittsburgh with President Gallagher and athletic director Lyke that they'll handle the situation appropriately.

In January, you said that it wasn't the right time to expand the college football playoff. Obviously with the expansion news of last month, do you still stand by that it's not the right time to expand?
Well, in my comments, I hope -- maybe I wasn't as clear as I needed to be, but the work that we've been able to do on health and safety, the 365-day calendar, those areas we just had not addressed.

For the ACC, we had several issues that we felt needed to be addressed. I can't speak for other conferences, but there were other conferences that had issues.

It was not appropriate just to put several games into our already crowded year, so the work that we've been able to do, and really it's been the 10 conferences and Notre Dame that's put this document together.

So we've really worked hard over a six-month period addressing that. So we feel much more comfortable about what that can look like as we go forward. We've never not been in favor of having an expanded college football playoff, but did not feel like we had done the work necessary to feel comfortable doing it at that time.

You mentioned FishBait. I'm curious, can you share any of the directions or avenues that they are exploring in terms of additional revenue paths? Are there any working plans, ideas, insights that you can share for what you're getting there?
We're not at that point yet. We're going to have a debrief with the ADs and the 15 schools next Monday, so we'll be able to speak to it after that.

But excited about what they're doing. Really are. There's great synergy there.

I think a lot of you know Rob Temple. I don't know if you know Rick Chryst, Rick Jones, Pete Derzis. This is a group that has had an awful lot of success in that space. Several of those individuals I mentioned have worked long careers with ESPN.

So as we look at revenue opportunities, the number one revenue opportunity is what do we do from a television standpoint, but there's so many other areas with events and sponsorships, et cetera.

I feel very good about where we're headed. I just do. Whether it's this year or as I look over the next five or ten years, as we continue to incrementally grow, I feel like we're going to be able to close that gap somewhat.

Given how the season has played out, is there any concern or should you have changed the football divisions earlier? Should you have gone to the Pac-12's model given how you've seen this season play out?
Hindsight is always 20/20, right? But this was something that we agreed to amongst the coaches and athletic directors and our staff. We put an awful lot of work into it and feel that it was the right time to do it.

I'm really pleased with the season that we've had, and of course it looks as of right now we have an imbalance of power on one side versus the other, but don't say that to the other division because I've seen quite a few really competitive games, et cetera.

We'll match up the two division winners in Charlotte that first Saturday in December and have a great game. You always look at -- I look at some of the match-ups we've had early in the year, and last weekend or two weekends ago, we had four ranked teams in the top 20 or so battling against each other in Tallahassee and in Clemson.

It would be great if you could project at the end of the year and play four top-20 teams near the end there. Those things just happened, and you schedule it in a fair and equitable way and sometimes a division gets out of balance and sometimes they don't.

Really no remorse in not changing divisions a year earlier.

Commissioner, with the talks of the college football playoff expanding, do you think that will affect the timing of the college football regular season, the conference championship is usually the first Saturday of December. Do you think that will affect the timing of the conference championship games, as well?
Thanks for the question. It needs to be reviewed. It really does. I think those things, the more flexible that you become during the regular season, then the more flexibility you'll have in the postseason. That certainly is something that we have to consider about when the start date is, when do you play those conference championships, when do you start that first week of first-round games, and then the subsequent rest of the Playoffs.

That's part of this 365-day calendar that we've been working on.

 In July there was a lot of doom and gloom about conference realignment, a lot of pressure on you. How have those have those talks behind the scenes evolved, and is it still as intense as it was, or has it cooled off?
It's always -- the intensity doesn't stop. Maybe out in the public world. You continue to monitor what's happening. You continue to try to make the very best decisions. You continue to look at all options.

I feel really good about where we're at. We met - we meaning the ACC board - and myself and our executive staff, met in Durham three weeks ago or so for our normal two days of fall meetings. That's a unified group. It really is.

It's a collaborative an unified group that's working together that feels good about not only where we're at right now but where we're headed.

Some of those things have settled down some, and we need it to. You can't always be in a state of chaos, whether it's expansion, whether it's the NCAA restructuring, whether it's the college football playoff.

I mean, you put the situation in there. You have to have some stability and you have to start moving forward in a clear way.

But feel good about where we're at and feel good about where we're going.

You mentioned the influence of the ACC through federal legislation. Both sides of the aisle have made proposals on NIL and other things that have gone nowhere. What do you as a conference advocate in that regard?
We need help, and we've gotten together as Power Five commissioners, we've gotten together as FBS commissioners. We have to have their assistance and they, meaning our folks in D.C., our elected officials, know that. And we are seeing more engagement that we have in the past, and maybe that is because there are some other issues that they have been able to get rectified in D.C.

But they understand we cannot sustain this model in the current environment. We have agreed in the history of the NCAA to abide by a certain set of rules. Now, we might not have always liked those rules and legislation, but we've abided by that. This one we haven't been able to get to consensus.

It's not a fault kind of pointing the finger. Our schools are doing the very best that they can, and our states are doing the very best that they can.

But we have to have some help because of the legal issues that are connected to this.

What does your experience on the men's and women's basketball committees tell you would be the primary logistical hurdles if expansion of those two tournaments was to happen?
Well, logistics, first of all, and how does it affect the regular season, how does it affect your conference play. Maybe add a weekend. Maybe there's first-round byes for teams that are ranked at a certain level or seeded at a certain level. It's a Rubik's Cube times two.

But the ability to increase a championship can happen. It can happen. There will be a lot of work that needs to be done. It has to be done thoughtfully. We need to make sure we're listening to the membership.

But in the end, I saw what came out of the council last week like you did about maybe the guidelines should be 25 percent. I don't know that we can reach that in every sport. But I think the closer we can get to that number is best for student-athletes.

But what do you do during the regular season? What do you do during conference play? You can't just add a bunch of new games. There's got to be a little bit of give and take in that.

I really believe it to be possible, and I don't think it gets watered down. I don't believe that the NCAA Tournaments get less exciting in baseball or lacrosse or basketball by having additional schools that qualify for it.

Commissioner, senator McGarvey out of Kentucky recently co-sponsored a bill that basically allows a collegiate athlete to keep the details of their NIL deal private. Do you think schools should have access to the NIL deals to release the information to the general public?
Well, you need to if you're going to have a compliance division and you're going to have a system in place that everybody is going to try to abide by and have some guardrails to what student-athletes can and can't do.

I understand. I saw that piece of legislation. It certainly will make it more complicated if that ends up being duplicated across the country in certain states.

But at the end of the day, having some type of disclosure is going to be necessary. I think in the NIL space when you talk about having some balance and having some guardrails along that legislation.

What can you share about your conversations with leaders in Greensboro on the move to Charlotte as well as the intent to keep Greensboro involved in future tournaments?
Those are hard conversations. I think so highly of -- I've loved living in Greensboro this last nearly two years. Greensboro has meant so much to the ACC, and I know the ACC has meant a lot to Greensboro. Mayor Vaughn is as classy of a lady as there is there, and all of the leaders of the city of Greensboro.

But what I would say is this process was never predetermined about where we would end up, including staying in Greensboro. It was very, very open, was very transparent. I talked to the city of Greensboro at every turn.

We had an awful lot of great choices, 12 to 15 cities in our footprint. We got it down to three.

When you have to make that kind of call, it's never easy, but it's the right thing. It's the right moment. It's about the modernization of our conference. Our conference looks different than it has nearly now 70 years ago.

I know that the city was disappointed, but I think they respected how we went about the process, which to me was very important, and maybe some people thought it took a little bit too long.

Well, when you go through something like that and you're going to make a decision, it warrants that type of time.

As far as championships, we've had a long history of Greensboro. That's not going to stop. We want to continue to go back to Greensboro. Women's basketball, men's basketball, we've played golf championships there. They have the nicest nanatorium I think in the country.

This isn't going to be everybody picks up and nobody goes back to Greensboro. The day-to-day operation will be in a different city. 50 employees will be in a different city.

But the roots remain there. The affection remains there.

Again, it was a process that I'm proud of how we've handled, and I am excited about coming to Charlotte and what that will mean for the ACC and our 15 schools.

Haven't heard much talk about transfer portals since I've gotten here yesterday, but nevertheless, I read constantly and I hear coaches constantly complain about the avalanche of players flowing everywhere and coaches feeling like they have to recruit their own players in the locker room every year to keep their teams intact. What is the ACC doing potentially to help stabilize the situation?
 We have to have -- just like the NIL, we have to have some guardrails and windows, and the transformation committee has worked on that, and that will be part of the development of this new structure.

It can't be any day, any time, 365 days of the year. It's unfair. It just is.

The academic component is not even discussed. We've talked a lot about rosters and coaches not liking it because they're not sure who's back and who's coming and all the rest of it. We can do it in a sensible way that allows student-athlete freedom of movement, which I believe strongly in. We all have our own examples of that.

The ability to have some windows across each of our sports that makes sense, so what might be right for football might not be right for baseball or basketball, so try to do it in the ebbs and flows of their particular seasons. We're making really good progress there, and I think, again, you'll see something as we continue to refine what we want this modernization of the NCAA to look like.

I wanted to ask you, you mentioned the narrative that kind of plagued the conference during the regular season last year basketball-wise of being a down year. Does the success in the NCAA Tournament, do you believe that carries over? Is it as simple as winning those non-conference games? Is there anything you've talked about coaches and programs about doing to promote so that narrative doesn't kind of follow you again?
 Listen, it is what it is. We live in a world that out of the gate and non-conference really matters. We didn't perform at as high of a level as we needed to in the non-conference. Similarly last year in football. So we saw already, though, this year in football that we have been able to perform at a higher level.

So getting out early, whether you like it or not, whether you think it's fair or not, that just is kind of how you start to get painted.

Playing a really good non-conference schedule, but more importantly winning those really good non-conference games will matter and help set the narrative, et cetera.

We've won three of the last seven National Championships in basketball. Right there on the cusp of really winning four of the last seven. As far as what carries over from one year to the next, I don't know that that necessarily happens. In this day and age where rosters change so dramatically that it is just kind of a new slate when we tip off on November 7th, everybody will be wondering.

The polls are -- you use the polls to your advantage when you're in the polls and you say the polls don't really matter if you're not in the polls. It depends on what street you live on as it relates to that.

But you start to see those first few weeks of games, and then you start to -- it starts to formulate how you feel about different programs and how you feel about different conferences.

That's just, I think, the realities of it. There's no complaining or whining about it. You just deal with it, and you play better in the non-conference.

The women's basketball tournament has been in Greensboro, it's been a fixture there for the past 22 years. Only one time it's not been there since then. Is that kind of the perfect venue for that sport, for their conference tournament, or have there been discussions about an alternative location for that?
It's been the perfect venue for sure. You just described it well.

Again, during my nearly two years in this role, we have and will continue to look at what we do with all of our championships. Not just women's basketball in your particular example, but all of our championships.

Feedback from our coaches and feedback from our student-athletes really is significant to the conference office and myself. But you also don't want to mess up a good thing, and so you've got to kind of balance those two things.

But excited about it, and our brand is only getting stronger in women's basketball. Excited about what this year looks like, and we'll certainly address future years as we move forward.

How does it kind of benefit the profile of the conference when you have a school like Virginia Tech, a non-blue blood, non-traditional program as the reigning basketball champion?
It helps. Yeah, it helps. I think what it shows, it shows the depth of the conference, and that goes back to one of the questions I think Luke had relative to just the expansion of the tournament.

You get beaten down during conference play. It's hard. I listed all of those accolades of our fall sports. We have teams that have two, three, four losses that are in the top 25 in some of those sports.

I think it's healthy. I think it helps the league. I think it indicates that if you come play in one of our 15 schools, in your example, in ACC basketball, you've got a chance to win a conference championship, and if you do, you're going to be pretty good. That was a wonderful story last year for Coach Young and the Hokies.