Jim Phillips states the ACC has 'never been stronger as a league'

There has been much speculation about what the future of the ACC wil look like once the SEC and Big Ten’s new media rights deal is implemented this fall.

While the ACC is stuck in its media deal with ESPN until 2036, they are one of three power conferences that added new programs into their ranks this season. For the ACC, SMU, Cal and Stanford join the fray as new conference members.

Looking ahead at the future, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips explained why he’s excited for the direction his conference is heading toward.

“We’ve never been stronger as a league,” Phillips said during an appearance on SportsCenter. “Again, if you take a look at results — when you take a look at the financial results, we distributed over $700 million, a record, to our institutions. We won more national championships over the last three years than any conference in the country. We have some of the elite academic institutions, again, across the United States and across the world. We have also been very innovative. We have a success initiative plan this year that will allow teams that do well in the league in the sports of football and basketball, to have additional dollars distributed to them, in an unequal fashion for the first time.

“I am totally bullish about the future of the ACC. We will work through these legal issues. But that can’t continue to be the narrative. It just can’t be. Because I think people are missing a really good story called, ‘ACC sports. ACC football and success that everyone’s having.”

Those legal issues refer to situations directly impacted by the ACC’s media rights deal. While the SEC and Big Ten have been given lucrative television deals, the ACC has asked a judge earlier this year to uphold the grant of rights agreement as the other two power conferences are set to make hundreds of millions of dollar more than the ACC over the next decade and change.

However, it has since been reported that ESPN has the option to end the media rights deal in 2027, as the document cites the need for written notice to the ACC “no later than two (2) years after the launch of date of the ACC-ESPN Network” about ESPN’s plans to pick up the option. The ACC and ESPN launched ACC Network in 2019.

Florida State and Clemson also filed a lawsuit against the conference as they weighs their options about leaving the league.

For now, the conference’s grant of rights, which came together in 2010, is still binding through 2036.