ACC Board of Directors announce new 'success-incentive initiative' for future conference revenue sharing

Several prominent ACC schools have been pushing for the league to change the way it splits revenue and to start rewarding schools based on performance.

The league is now ready to make that change.

The ACC Board of Directors announced on Wednesday that it has endorsed a success incentive initiative that will begin during the 2024-25 academic year. The initiative will reward programs that perform well in certain sports.

“Today’s endorsement follows significant and meaningful conversations by the ACC Board of Directors,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said. “To be certain, I applaud their thoughtfulness and continued commitment to working collectively. As we’ve communicated consistently, we remain dedicated to exploring all options to enhance support for our member institutions and their student-athletes.”

It has not yet been decided exactly how the revenue split will happen, but success incentives will come from the performance of teams in revenue generating postseason competition. All other revenues will continue to be equally shared as currently outlined.

Several schools have been pushing for this to happen, including Clemson and Florida State.

Those programs, as well as others in the league, have considered challenging the Grant of Rights and leaving the conference in order to try to compete with the SEC and Big Ten.

The hope within the ACC is that this change will incentivize schools to stay in the league.

“The ACC Board of Directors continues to be committed to exploring all potential opportunities that will result in additional revenues and resources for the conference,” ACC Board of Directors Chair and Duke University President Vincent E. Price said in a statement. “Today’s decision provides a path to reward athletic success while also distributing additional revenue to the full membership.”

Jim Phillips explains how ACC can ‘close the revenue gap’ between Big Ten, SEC

Phillips has other ideas for how the ACC can “close the revenue gap” with the Big Ten and SEC.

He spoke about some of them on the ACC Network last week.

“We have a tremendous partner in ESPN and Disney. And so we’ve had some great conversations with them about how we monetize the network even to a greater way. And being 50-50 partners with them, they’re as incentivized as we are to find some new areas of revenue,” Phillips said.

“Fishbait’s been terrific. This is an outside consultant that’s helped us look at sponsorship and other areas that really does have a chance to have an excellent return.”

Phillips also touched on other potential options for the league to close the revenue gap. It’s not going to be easy, but he does see a path that allows the ACC to continue as a strong and competitive conference.

“We’ve started this success initiative group amongst the board. … We’ve had a couple of conversations with the board about it. We had the subgroup meet yesterday on it, made some significant progress. We have some meetings next week in Charlotte with the board of the ACC, our 15 presidents and chancellors, so we’ll discuss it a little bit more,” Phillips said.

“At the end of the day, we’re taking the steps necessary to address the issue that we’re all talking about. There’s never going to be a direct line. There’s going to be pivots, there’s going to be movement. There’s going to be some processes that lead you to success. Some other processes that end up being a dead end for you financially. But what I do like is the cohesiveness and the togetherness of the group. And you’ve seen that.”