Jim Phillips bemoans how NIL has created tampering cases, how he's trying to address it

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, like many of his contemporaries, is not pleased with how the transfer portal and NIL have coalesced to cause recruiting inducements. Additionally, he’s not pleased with the aforementioned dynamic enticing coaches and others to tamper with players on another teams roster.

While the idea behind NIL was for athletes to be allowed to sign various endorsement deals and profit off their likeness, it’s quickly become a backdoor for entities to pay recruits, either in high school or the transfer portal. Phillips wants to course correct from this somehow, and he’s been looking to federal lawmakers for help.

“We see it. I hear cases of it. And we just have to try to figure out a way to fix that,” Phillips said during an appearance on the ACC Network on Wednesday. “Hence what I told you maybe earlier off the air about going to Washington, D.C., about trying to get some help federally.”

Phillips did acknowledge that the tampering element is very touch and go. While it is broadly accepted that it is something that happens, documented cases of NIL-fueled tampering are few and far between. And to actually enforce a rule, you have to show it was violated.

“As far as the tampering piece of it, it’s a really difficult one, because the transfer portal now has become tied to name, image and likeness,” Phillips said. “And we all know that name, image and likeness was never meant to be an inducement. It was really meant to be a serious and an honest way for young people that have great talents and a likeness and an image, that they could monetize it. That they’d be able to do that. But the two have been connected like a magnet, which is disappointing. And so that’s going on all across the country.”

Phillips also discussed unity in the ACC amid tensions over revenue sharing

There has been a lot of drama coming out of ACC spring meetings, with reports coming in that seven ACC schools are looking into the Grant of Rights. In particular, they were trying to figure just how “unbreakable” the Grant of Rights is as they’re growing more and more concerned that other conferences are passing the ACC due to its media deal.

Phillips addressed the length of the ACC deal as well as unity within the conference as a whole.

“It’s never good enough for anybody that’s competitive, of course,” Phillips said. “Of course not. Our schools have done a great job with the resources they’ve been given and so what I understand is anything else that we can do to close that gap will exponentially help our schools.”