CHARLOTTE — Jim Phillips feels all parties involved in the Clemson and Florida State settlements came away happy, though it might appear the Tigers and Seminoles got the better end of the deal.
Clemson got everything it wanted. It got a new brand initiative policy, an affordable exit fee and full access to its media rights.
During Tuesday’s Commissioner’s Forum to kickoff the 2025 ACC Football Kickoff at the Hilton Uptown in Charlotte, Phillips was asked if the unequal revenue sharing concerned him, especially with what happened in the Big 12 when Texas A&M and Nebraska left the Big 12 back in 2012.
“In this particular case, we did that, and we did it, I thought, in a very fair and equitable manner,” Phillips said. “If you want to earn more money, then you’re going to need to invest. We have two prongs to this thing. We have the overall success initiatives where, go perform in football and men’s and women’s basketball, and you will get a bigger share of the revenue from the conference than others.
“Then viewership ends up being, go put a good team together, invest, play good competition, play good non-conference games, draw attention like last year’s game with Georgia Tech and Florida State did, and others.”
Phillips mentioned this years Clemson-LSU game to open the season is one of those non-conference games that draws a lot of eyeballs on Clemson and in turn gives the Tigers more of an opportunity to make more television dollars.
“Go fight for those dollars from a viewership standpoint. Everybody’s going to get a certain level of viewership dollars, which, again, there will be a little bit of teeter-tottering based on your performance, based on your team, and that’s healthy, I really do,” he said. “It may not fit all leagues or other leagues, but I know that was part of what was right and a reconciliation for the league.”
Phillips is not concerned that Clemson and Florida State are going to ask for money down the road. He feels they were both upfront with what they wanted, and the league worked with them in making this happen. He feels all parties are content with where they are at moving forward.
“Since we’ve had that take place in March, I’ve not felt stronger about this league than I have in the last five months, and I mean that. I’m not just saying that. It’s not hyperbole and the rest of that stuff. I really believe it,” he said. “When you think about settling those lawsuits and being committed to one another, you talk about viewership and success on how to distribute dollars, you talk about coming back off of the most revenue we’ve ever distributed, 29 National Championships, sport of football getting better and we want to take another step this year, the league is situated nicely right now.”
Financially, the ACC is in great shape, at the moment. It was most recently reported, the league was one of only two power conferences to show a revenue increase in 2023-24. The ACC had the highest gross revenue ever reported for the league at over $711 million.
Over the last five years, according to Phillips, the ACC’s overall revenue is up 56 percent, and has more than tripled in the last 13 years. The ACC delivered an average of $45 million to each school, also a league record.
The ACC was in the top three in both overall revenues generated and per school distribution.
“Difficult, bumpy, challenging, but let’s not let a lazy narrative from a standpoint of people not moving on and understanding kind of where we’re going,” Phillips said. “I feel like the league has earned that. Nobody gave that to us. We were steady. You didn’t see us at all move this way or that way.
“People said a lot of things about the league, but at the end of the day, that’s where we’re at, and exercised our partnership with ESPN, which everybody said was not going to happen through ’35-‘ 36, which gives us a platform of the ACC for the next decade.”
–photo by Jim Dedmon / Imagn Images