Jim Phillips on proposed House settlement: 'This is a reset in college sports'

If you were waiting for the great “reset” in college sports, well Jim Phillips said it’s here with the proposed House settlement.

With that proposal, a lot of money would go back to the student athletes in revenue sharing. Phillips was asked if he had any concerns and whether or not the settlement could be equitable.

The ACC commissioner open up at ACC Media Days, diving into the ramifications.

“I think another really good question. Here is what I would say. I’ll take the second part first,” Phillips said. It is to me equitable relative to who’s playing for that, et cetera. We’ve all been part of this association. This idea that it’s football only and should be driven by the football coaches, I do not agree with that.

“I think the board of directors emphasized that they would not have signed off on that if they felt differently. There’s shared pain on this. The NCAA, I give our new president Charlie Baker a lot of credit. He’s trying to take the most of it on.”

As for revenue sharing itself, Phillips didn’t provide too many specific examples, but he mentioned how you need to actually get into the process to see the effects.

“As it relates to the first part of the question, I talked about that a couple years ago. I don’t think everybody liked what I had to say in that particular forum. It’s okay. But that has been kind of our history of being under the tent kind of together,” Phillips said.

“But you’re seeing some clear separation. I think there will be choices to be made. That’s what we’re working through right now with this proposed settlement. There’s so many steps that affect the long-term future, but you don’t know what’s future is going to be until you start to get into it.”

Jim Phillips talks future of college sports with House settlement

One thing Phillips didn’t want to get into was roster sizes. He wanted to keep it about the money.

“For example, we’re talking about roster sizes,” Phillips said. “That’s been well communicated out there. I’m not going to talk anything about that. But that’s one element of it.

“The distribution of dollars will be different for the first time in a real meaningful way for our student-athletes. I’m excited for our student-athletes. As I said before, in my own family, for Laura and I, we know what having student-athletes in your house looks like. So I’m really happy for them.”

Ultimately, athletes getting a piece of the pie was the ultimate goal and Phillips is on board.

“This is a good thing for student-athletes,” Phillips said. “There’s going to be added significant pressure for each of our schools, not only in the ACC but around the country, to continue to try to provide broad-based programming, Title IX, all the things we believe in. It will be a challenge. I’m excited about it. I really am. The final thing I’ll say to wrap up is, this is what I would call a reset. I said this from the very beginning. I said several months ago when it looked like we had some kind of agreement. 

“This is a reset in college sports. It doesn’t mean that college sports still can’t be great and still as interesting and all the rest of it. But it’s a reset in the structure of it. I look forward to being a part of those discussions and help lead us as we move forward.”