CHARLOTTE – ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips held a press conference Wednesday morning at the ACC Basketball Tipoff.

Phillips was asked, now that the league had its annual fall meetings, how he would assess the conference membership right now in terms of schools being content and aligned after a spirited discussion when it came to new membership.

“I’ve never been more confident in the league than what we just went through over the last three or four months,” Phillips said. “Let me articulate it a little bit further. First, we talked about having a different distribution of revenue success initiatives that we made a public statement about in the spring, in May, after the board meeting. We have moved quickly on that and will distribute dollars differently for the first time. We listened to the membership on that.

“Secondly, we had this amazing brand campaign that Amy (Yakola) led, ‘Accomplish Greatness,’ which I think we’ve needed to do to modernize and forward face our ACC brand. We’ve had the expansion piece that you’ve talked about, and we’ve moved (the ACC headquarters) to Charlotte.”

As for the aforementioned ACC expansion, Phillips commented on the conference adding Stanford, Cal and SMU as new members in 2024, giving thoughts on what he thinks those schools will bring to the league.

“Listen, the expansion piece, as I indicated, academically, there’s no one that can tell me or anyone else that those aren’t three really good schools that fit the ACC,” Phillips said. “Athletically, two of them have led the Sears Director’s Cup. One has dominated it, the other has been involved in it. Funnel more student-athletes from those two schools than any other, and also have had good history in a variety of other sports. They bring two new markets to us: San Francisco, the Bay Area, and Dallas Fort Worth.

“We are a national conference. We’ve been a regional conference. Two years ago would we have done this? Probably not, but times have changed, and you either get on the offensive or you don’t.”

So, how is the health of the ACC right now, in Phillips’ mind?

“The league is healthy. The league is healthy,” he said. “At the end of the day, my job is to run the ACC and make sure it’s healthy for the next 70 years as it has been the last 70 years. I cannot control individual feelings on campuses, but we have addressed head-on anything that our campuses have indicated. I feel great. I really do. I’ve never been more bullish. I can’t say that I felt that way a year ago.

“That’s where we’re at. The meetings were fantastic. We had our three new schools there with us, so we have had a chance to start some dialogue there. We’ve got a lot of work left with scheduling and some other things, but the future is really bright in this conference.”

Phillips went on to say he feels “this conference has been undervalued, and I’m going to continue on that.”

“When you talk about CFP appearances, you talk about National Championships in college football, you talk about the basketball success I just mentioned, you talk about a conference that’s won more National Championships than any other conference, you talk about a conference that has a network — there’s only three and there will always only be three. There’ll never be more collegiate networks. You talk about the success we’re having in the classroom. I could go on and on. We distribute money, a third that continues to grow,” Phillips said.

“The narrative has run away about you have to make a certain amount of money to have success. You have to go chase the dollar. I think it’s about are we chasing, again, dollars, or are we chasing success? And that’s what we’re doing, we’re chasing success with real student-athletes that are graduating at the highest level from enormously difficult institutions.”

When it’s all said and done after expansion, Phillips believes the ACC will have “eight of the very best private institutions, 10 of the very best public institutions” and will “be in great markets.”

“That’s where I think the league is, and that’s kind of what we talked about during the meetings,” he said. “It’s not pollyannaish. It just isn’t.”

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