ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips talks revenue gap, league success and NIL issues at Kickoff event

Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner Jim Phillips spoke for a little less than one hour at his annual Commissioner’s Forum at the ACC Kickoff in downtown Charlotte on Tuesday morning.

And after a 28-minute, wide-ranging opening statement, in which he praised the conference’s national titles in non-revenue sports and its high level of academics among many other topics, he then opened the floor to questions for the last half-hour or so.

And that wasn’t so wide-ranging.

As might be expected, Phillips was asked almost exclusively about two things: NIL and ACC revenue distribution.

On one — the issues surrounding Name, Image and Likeness — he was very specific about what he thinks is needed to help the ACC and the entirety of college football.

On the other, well, he was a lot less specific in how exactly the conference will close the ever-widening revenue gap between itself and the Big Ten and SEC.

But Phillips did say repeatedly he is confident about the conference’s future.

“The league is healthy. It just is,” Phillips said. “… Certainly, there are rumblings. We all saw what happened in the springtime. But the group has come together in a way, to me, that demonstrates they want to work together to find solutions.”

The “rumblings” in the spring were published reports that Florida State and at least six other ACC schools were looking for a way to break the conference’s Grant of Rights media deal and perhaps find a new conference to call home.

Phillips said multiple times on Tuesday that those discussions were difficult in the spring, but he said he’s quite encouraged by how the league presidents and chancellors have responded since those meetings.

“I think that’s helped us come together and understand these are some of the things we have to address,” Phillips said.

He said the “CEOs” meet once a week now — sometimes more — shich was not the case during his first two years in office. He says it’s likely double the amount of times the presidents and chancellors were meeting before the spring “rumblings.”

“At the end of the day, I think you turned a tough situation into a positive one,” Phillips said.

When asked about Clemson and Florida State specifically being unhappy with the revenue distribution disparity, with the notion of ACC schools being $30 million to $40 million behind schools from other conferences annually, Phillips said he thinks the programs and their leaders are hopeful to make it work in the ACC.

“Instead of trying to get to a number, try to bridge it as far as you can,” Phillips said. “Those two institutions have been great to work with.”

The commissioner said he would have been concerned if there hadn’t been any more discussions following the spring, but the board is meeting every week. And ESPN has also been in the talks as well, because they “understand the volatility” right now in TV distribution.

He said ESPN has been working with the ACC to try to add additional revenue.

“You have a lot of mutual beneficial outcomes,” Phillips said. “So staying together, working collaboratively … trying to address that revenue gap.”

As far as how that’s done?

Well, Phillips didn’t really offer any specifics.

He did say that an unequal revenue model will begin in the 2024-2025 academic year for on-field success. But the structure of how that will work, how much money is on the table, has still not been finalized.

The other big topic for the day, which didn’t include Phillips’ time at Northwestern — other than an opening remark in which he said he couldn’t discuss an ongoing legal issue — was NIL.

The Commissioner was adamant that something has to be done to apply guardrails to the current landscape, which he lamented had become in many cases, “pay for play.”

“Payment by boosters (to attend a school) is not a legitimate NIL activity,” he said.

He also lamented that each state has different rules, which is why he wants congress to apply federal guidelines to NIL deals for college athletes. And he made sure to emphasize repeatedly that they are, in fact, student-athletes in his eyes.

“Not employees,” he said.

Phillips said he wants national language, federal rules, on what is allowed and not allowed when it comes to NIL activities, and he said he wants to eliminate the “pay for play” and “bad actors” that have sullied name, image and likeness.

“I’m hopeful we can get there,” Phillips said. “I think we’ve made a ton of progress over the last two or three months.”

*ALSO SEE: Full transcript of Phillips’ comments at ACC Kickoff

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