Can ACC keep up revenue during conference realignment? Commissioner Jim Phillips responds

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner Jim Phillips entered his annual ACC Kickoff press conference Wednesday in an awkward spot.

Some described it as a bit of a lose-lose situation.

Whichever way he handled the conference's extremely uncertain future in a rapidly evolving college football landscape was going to draw some criticism.

Too positive, and people would say he was a bit delusional.

Too negative, and people would say he has given up.

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Fittingly given the landscape, Phillips balanced the two during an opening statement that lasted nearly 30 minutes, followed by a 25-minute Q&A with media members.

He spoke confidently about his belief in the ACC's future while speaking out indirectly in opposition of the SEC and Big Ten, both of which have announced prominent expansion additions over the last 12 months.

"I will continue to do what's in the best interest of the ACC, but will also strongly advocate for college athletics to be a healthy neighborhood, not a two or three gated communities," Phillips said.

Most of all, Phillips made one thing clear.

When it comes to keeping the ACC afloat, all options are on the table.

What can be done about the TV contract?

The biggest threat to the ACC over the next few years is the revenue gap between the SEC/Big Ten and the rest of the major conferences.

According to research done by Navigate, the SEC and Big Ten are both expected to be paying each member school an average of over $85 million annually by 2026.

That's significantly more than the $48 to $51 million that the other three power five conferences, the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12, are expected to pay each school that same year.

"All metrics, we are one of the leaders in the country in all of those areas I talked about, except the revenue piece of it," Phillips said.

"That's been brought to light with the recent move of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten."

The main problem for the ACC is that while most major conferences have the chance to sign new television contracts soon, the ACC's grant-of-rights agreement, signed in 2016, goes through 2036.

That means the ACC won't have a chance to get a more lucrative television deal for another 14 years unless something changes. Although there's no clear and easy fix, Phillips said Wednesday that he's constantly trying to find a way to fix the problem.

"We're looking at our TV contract. We're in engagement almost daily with our partners at ESPN. I openly talk about ESPN because we are 50/50 partners on our network and so they're motivated, we're motivated," Phillips said.

"We've come together to have some discussions about what would be the next iteration for the ACC. It doesn't mean we're going to make a move. It doesn't mean we're not going to make a move, but all options are on the table."

Will ACC's current schools remain together?

One discussion point posed during this process has been whether any schools will try to escape the Grant of Rights (GOR) that binds the schools' media rights to the ACC.

It's been reported that doing so at this point would cost upwards of $400 million for a school to do so between the exit fee and forfeited television revenue.

Although it's definitely possible that a few ACC schools may want out to be able to get to one of the two emerging major conferences, Phillips said he hasn't heard anything of the sort from the ACC's member schools.

"I love our 15 schools, and I'm confident in us staying together. That's all I've heard in all the calls that we've had," Phillips said.

"We want to work together to try to provide more resources to our student-athletes so we're all on the same page."

Pending some seismic change, the only free way out of the ACC at the moment would be through finding a loophole in the GOR contract. Like a great deal else of what he said Wednesday, Phillips couldn't entirely write off this possibility.

However, he quoted recent history when saying he doubts it would be easy to accomplish finding a way out.

"People talked about Oklahoma and Texas leaving immediately. I think that's pretty well-stated now that that's not the case. They're going to wait until their grants of rights is over," Phillips said.

"Listening to UCLA and USC at the end of June, June 30th, and subsequent days after they clearly are going to stay in the PAC-12 until their grant of rights is over. You can follow the logic there. I would think that the significance of what that would mean, the television rights that the conference owns as well as a nine-figure financial penalty, I think (the grant of rights) holds, but your guess is as good as mine."

Could revenue inequity or expansion happen in the ACC?

A slip of the tongue by Phillips Wednesday could wind up being prophetic about the ACC's future.

Asked about the potential for expansion in the future, he accidentally referred to the ACC having 17 active members before quickly correcting himself and stating that there are 15 current members of the conference.

While that is true for this moment in time, one way for the ACC to remain at least somewhat competitive in the college athletics landscape would be by bolstering its ranks with a few prominent additions.

The best of those would likely be Notre Dame, which was a football member of the ACC in 2020 but is now once more independent in football and an ACC member in every other sport.

Although there's been no pressure yet on the Irish to join a conference in order to have a path to the College Football Playoff, Phillips was adamant in his belief that ND would join the ACC if forced to pick one.

The nature of ND's ACC contract means it would have a notably smaller buyout if it wanted to leave the conference to compete in football elsewhere.

"We continue to remain close with Notre Dame. They know how we feel. They know that we would love to have them as a football member in the conference, but we also and I also respect their independence," Phillips said.

"Having worked there, having two children there, going to school right now, one a student-athlete, I know what independence means to Notre Dame. So you respect it and I know that if there comes a time that Notre Dame would consider moving to a conference and away from independence, I feel really good about it being the ACC."

Additionally, the ACC could explore splitting its television revenue unequally, favoring the schools and football programs that are most heavily committed to football and giving them a larger piece of the pie.

This idea would definitely help the ACC programs with the best odds of competing for national titles have a better chance of doing so than if the split of revenue continued to be equal.

However, it bears mentioning that a similar non-equal revenue split has previously been tried in the Big 12 and it didn't work as a long-term fix.

Like with quite a few other things Wednesday, Phillips didn't write this off a possible solution the ACC explores.

"I would go back to what I said earlier and answered: All options are on the table," Phillips said.

"When you look at revenue, you look at closing the gap, you look at generating more, you look at distribution, it all is part of a similar conversation."

Reach Curt Weiler at cweiler@tallahassee.com or follow him on Twitter @CurtMWeiler.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: ACC leader Jim Phillips exploring options to keep up with SEC, Big Ten