CHARLOTTE – Jim Phillips is holding the string, holding it tight as the balloon rises.
The model of college sports that we have known and loved for years is changing. He is dying or, some might say, dead. He floats like this balloon, out and out, never to be seen again.
“If we take a path that will only be about football and basketball, shame on us,” Phillips, the ACC commissioner, said in front of hundreds of reporters at the media days of the tournament on Wednesday.
Among those in the industry, Phillips is not alone in refusing to let go of the balloon. Some may say this is brave; some may say this is ignorance.
Projections show the Big Ten and SEC, in their new TV deals, as doubling the revenue generated by Phillips’ ACC.
This is almost more than new laws governing compensation. This is about the structure and mission of college sports, an industry that, due to megamillions in television revenue, has found itself in the mountains between the fans and the experience from which there is no way back.
The rise of the US dollar has not only opened the door to the compensation of college players but now they are also dividing the major leagues, dividing them financially in an unstoppable way. While conference membership is changing in a volcanic way—Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC; USC and UCLA to the Big Ten – more tectonic plates are moving below in the player career category. It’s an idea that, administrators say, threatens to destroy the college Olympic system.
All of a sudden, the connection of higher education to major college football and men’s basketball seems wrong. Culture, history and old ways are gone. What many have predicted for years is starting to materialize: a gathering of the biggest companies in college football looking for big bucks and leaving their peers for some kind of elite.
Phillips describes college sports as a “neighborhood,” and for that neighborhood to be healthy, all the houses must be together. But still, he admits, the neighborhood is discouraged. Gated communities are established.
As much as he wants to be, his team is not behind the door. Despite having the largest group of big names in college football and basketball outside of the Big Ten and the SEC (think Clemson, UNC, FSU and Miami), the ACC is not part of the club.
In his 18th month on the board, Phillips members have been clamoring for revenue sharing between themselves and their rivals. The projections show the Big Ten and the SEC, in their new television deals, like doubling the revenue generated by the ACC, whose members are locked into an ESPN media rights contract that extends 14 more years. The Power of 5 and the Group of 5 is now described by one administrator as “Top 2, Other 1 and Group 7.”
ACC is the Other 1, arguably third best but with a chasm separating it from the other two. “We understand where those two games are. We’re trying to find ways to close that gap,” Phillips said.
But how? All options are on the table, he said. Although he did not detail those, they are clear: (1) increase membership; (2) cooperation with another party; or (3) adjust the competition’s revenue distribution system.
Let’s take No. 1. The team that really makes sense and adds value to the ACC is Notre Dame, and the Irish, despite ACC events, are content to be independent in football.
But if the Irish decide to enter the league, Phillips said he’s “very excited” about joining the ACC and not the other obvious landing spot: the Big Ten. When asked why later, he cited Notre Dame’s deal with the ACC when it factored into all other sports. The Irish have their own exit fee of nine if they also leave the competition for another conference and give up their rights in the remaining games.
No. 2 was possible. The partnership between the ACC and Pac-12 is alive and well, sources told Sports Illustrated. But will such a deal really add that much value to the competition? That is still unknown as officials investigate the information. ESPN has poured millions into the ACC. Isn’t it for the benefit of the network to keep up with the competition?
“They want to help the ACC. They need to help the ACC,” Phillips said.
No. 3 aims to end the long-standing practice of equal distribution of income in the assembly. Instead, the competition will allocate dollars unevenly, based on potential performance and other factors. Sure, it’s “on the table,” Phillips said, but is it really the right solution — to cut dollars for the weak and increase wealth for the strong?
Perhaps there is a fourth option that breaks the whole convention. Maybe some of its members won’t wait around for this. They will likely challenge the Grant of Rights, an agreement that matches the TV contract and binds the schools together through 2036. The Grant of Rights gives the ability to control TV rights to all member home events. Not only will a school pay an automatic exit fee of $120 million, but it must negotiate what could be hundreds of millions of dollars in residual media rights fees for each year it exits early.
Are there ways to get out of Rights Support? Phillips points to Oklahoma and Texas, who are filling out their Grant of Rights through 2024 before going to the SEC. “I think it’s good,” Phillips said when asked before adding this: “But your thoughts are as good as mine.”
While trying to solve this income gap, Phillips continued to fight to preserve the college model. For example, he wants to leave the elements of the league unchanged, such as the NCAA basketball tournament, when others are proposing to cut the minors. He avoided any talk of paying sports fees because it would harm the Olympic Games.
He clings to the balloon, rightly or wrongly, fighting what one moderator calls “the good fight.”
“We’re not experts,” Phillips said from Wednesday’s forum. “This is not the NFL. This is not NBA Lite. This should not be a win-all or zero-sum approach.”
Some would argue that it is too much.
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