In the span of about a week, in cities separated by about 600 miles, two of the most powerful leaders in college athletics offered contrasting worldviews in this summer of massive change and uncertainty. One of them espoused the supposed values of the traditional collegiate sports model; the other embraced and even welcomed the upheaval that has arrived and will undoubtedly persist.
Those competing viewpoints will shape the future of the ACC, now vulnerable at a time in college athletics in which money, particularly that derived from television rights contracts, carries more weight than ever. Indeed, the conference is in talks with ESPN about what can be done to enhance its own deal. And the ACC, perhaps for the first time, is considering an unequal revenue sharing model that would reward higher-performing schools, however that might be defined.
“I will continue to do what’s in the best interest of the ACC,” Jim Phillips, the league’s second-year commissioner, said earlier last month during its football media days in Charlotte. “But (I) will also strongly advocate for college athletics to be a healthy neighborhood, not two or three gated communities.”
