CHARLOTTE — The 2023 ACC Football Kickoff kicked off Tuesday morning with the Commissioner’s Forum.

During it, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips emphasized that college athletics should have national guidelines for NIL (name, image and likeness) payments to college athletes, adding that he sees the involvement of the federal government as the best route to that.

“From a national perspective our conference continues to be a leader and efforts to find solutions for college athletic’s most pressing issues. We remain focused, which includes making frequent trips to Washington D.C. on working with our representatives to find a national solution to the race to the bottom from state legislators addressing name, image, and likeness,” Phillips said.

“The ACC remains strongly in favor of our student-athletes benefitting from the use of their name, image, and likeness. The framework that we continued to advance includes preempting the patchwork of inconsistent state laws through federal legislation is critical to providing clarity for our student-athletes and institutions.”

Phillips added that he will continue to work with others in the college community to protect NIL opportunities and “ensure they are untainted by inducements, bad actors, and false promises.”

“There’s a need to reaffirm that the student institutional relationship is just that,” Phillips said. “Our athletes are students, not employees. The college athletics enterprise must also be able to enhance and adapt the student-athlete experience without the constant threat of lawsuits that use funds for defense that could otherwise benefit our student-athletes.”

According to Phillips, the ACC is coming up with a Plan B if national guidelines are not put in place regarding NIL.

“We are thinking about a Plan B if we can’t get help from Washington,” he said.

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