ACC’s Jim Phillips reinforces decision to expand, suggests basketball tournament may not include all members

CHARLOTTE — Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Jim Phillips, speaking Wednesday for the first time since the league’s decision to add Cal, Stanford and SMU, reiterated why the league opted to expand — but did not preclude additional future movement.

“Getting to 18 protects the ACC, now and into the future,” Phillips said at ACC Tipoff. “Schools will ultimately make the decisions that they want.”

As The Athletic previously reported, in the ACC’s first vote regarding expansion, four schools — North Carolina, NC State, Clemson and Florida State — voted no, before NC State flipped and gave the league the majority needed to proceed. The three schools that voted “no” are considered the three most desirable brands in the ACC, and the ones that would be most attractive to the SEC and Big Ten in any future round of conference realignment. Earlier this summer, Florida State’s board of trustees even said publicly that under the league’s current financial model, it would be forced to consider leaving the conference.

Thus far, the ACC’s Grant of Rights — its media rights contract with ESPN which runs through 2036 — has prevented any current members from departing.

But asked how he has handled the league’s three dissenting members since the expansion was finalized, Phillips said, “I cannot control individual feelings on campuses, but we have addressed head-on anything that our campuses have indicated.”

After Florida State’s public unrest regarding the league’s current financial model, the ACC agreed to consider alternative revenue distribution models that better reward teams’ on-field success (and the investments that lead to it). In late May, the league announced it had embraced one of those models, which will reward teams for their postseason successes.

On top of that, by adding Cal, SMU and Stanford, the league is due three more annual membership shares from ESPN, as part of its pro-rata contract with the league. But one of the conditions of adding those new schools was that they received reduced or no distribution amounts for a period upon joining; per The Athletic’s reporting, Cal and Stanford will receive reduced (but increasing) rates for their first 12 years of membership, and SMU won’t receive any distributions for its first nine years in the ACC. That will create a new pool of funds to reward the league’s existing and more successful members.

“We have moved quickly on that and will distribute dollars differently for the first time,” Phillips said. “We listened to the membership on that.”

What else did Phillips say?

The commissioner also addressed, for the first time, the complicated scheduling and travel logistics that will result from expansion.

Asked about what the ACC basketball tournament will look like with 18 teams, Phillips said he isn’t necessarily married to the idea that all teams participate. “I don’t know that we would invite 18 teams to an ACC men’s or women’s basketball championship,” he added. “We’ll do what the membership wants. I don’t feel like that’s something that we should do. I’ve told them that. I’m not speaking out of turn.

“I think you’ve got to earn your way to play in, I think, the most prestigious postseason basketball tournaments in the country — and if you don’t get to a certain threshold, then you just don’t make it that year.”

There has never been an ACC men’s or women’s basketball tournament without every league member participating.

In terms of travel, Phillips said the league is still finalizing its plans, but he anticipates that most current members will make one West Coast trip every two years. One model under consideration would see current league members travel in pairs — like Duke and North Carolina, for example — and alternate playing Cal and Stanford in the course of one weekend. On the other hand, Cal and Stanford may make four or five East Coast trips in the course of a season; Phillips added that conference games may come earlier in the schedule so as to space out those trips.

“This is a chance for (schools) to bring their programs and their brands out to different markets that are national cities and have a media presence,” Phillips said. “The follow-up to that would be we’re working hard on distribution out there of the network, which is going to be a really key piece of that thing, as well.”

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(Photo of Jim Phillips: AP Photo / Nell Redmond)