ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips left the conference’s annual spring meetings “‘ecstatic’ that league officials could focus on the myriad external issues impacting the entire college sports enterprise,” according to David Teel of the Norfolk VIRGINIAN-PILOT. Phillips, on the dueling lawsuits that Clemson, Florida State, and the conference settled in March, said, “We shed ourselves of some things that were difficult to deal with” (Norfolk VIRGINIAN PILOT, 5/15). In Louisville, Payton Titus wrote the settlement brings some “stability,” though it “feels like a temporary solution.” He wondered what happens “a few years down the road when other power conferences’ TV deals expire and are up for renegotiation? If some of the ACC’s biggest brands leave for greener (as in money) pastures, what does that mean for Louisville?” Titus: “How long is the lifespan of this blissful window?” Phillips estimates it to be “three to five years (which, perhaps not so coincidentally, aligns closely with the expiration date of the SEC’s current media rights deal -- 2033-34 -- and the Big Ten’s -- 2029-30).” Phillips: “I just think you gotta settle down. And I think college athletics needs to settle down. Not just the ACC. I think we’ve positioned ourselves for that, and that’s a good thing. It just is. Chaos and the constant wondering of what’s happening here, there, I just think that distracts from the business at hand. But I feel good about where we’re at” (Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL, 5/15).
RING CHASING: In Raleigh, Luke DeCock noted the ACC’s last national title in football or men’s basketball was in 2019, marking its “longest title drought in those two important sports since the 1990s.” The ACC has been “increasingly squeezed out of the postseason” in “both critical revenue-generating sports.” The league “being more nationally competitive is an existential matter” because “championships matter, perhaps above everything else.” DeCock: “You can’t win them if you don’t get the chance.” He added as many titles as the ACC “wins in other sports, those two are going to drive the next television deal as much as anything, and that next TV deal is going to determine the future of the ACC itself.” The CFP “steering committee has been debating an expansion to 16 teams since before the playoff even expanded to 12, and the SEC and Big Ten haven’t been shy about throwing their weight around.” CFP Exec Dir Richard Clark spoke with ACC football coaches on Tuesday, but “the matter is largely out of their hands.” The ACC cannot “exert as much influence as its deeper-pocketed peers,” but it also cannot “acquiesce to a format that dooms it to football irrelevance by accepting three ‘AQs’ when other conferences get four, without a single game being played.” DeCock: “Otherwise, why even bother playing the games?” (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 5/14).
