ACC Kickoff 2023: Commissioner Jim Phillips fields questions on TV deals

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips Ph.D opened up the ACC Football Kickoff 2023 on Tuesday. After an opening statement, he opened the forum up for questions.

The most consequential question came from Pete Thamel, ESPN; What steps has the conference taken to bridge the financial gap, and how did the new CW package come to be?

"I would say this, the league is healthy," said Phillips. "It just is. Certainly, there are rumblings -- again, we all saw what happened in the springtime. But the group has come together in a way to me that demonstrates they want to work together to find solutions."

"Your question about what solutions has the conference come forward with? Well, we've worked with Fish Bait on our eight-point plan generating new additional revenue. The ESPN partnership is really strong, and ESPN and the ACC are completely motivated together to generate additional dollars. You see that the conference presidents and chancellors have initiated the success incentive initiative, which is going to distribute dollars in a disproportionate way. We've never gone down that road before in the ACC, and I'm not sure many conferences have."

"So revenue generation continues to be a priority. But let me be clear also, this league is third right now in revenue as we go forward into wherever the next TV deals are for other conferences where, we've looked at it. We've had multiple TV consultants. Third is certainly a good position, but we want to gain and gain traction financially in order to close the gap with obviously the SEC and the Big Ten, who have leapfrogged everyone."

"I think one of the presidents said it best, are we chasing a dollar amount, or are we chasing success? I think there's a difference there. If you are chasing a number, it takes you down a different path. If you are chasing success competitively in football and basketball and all of our sports, then I think every institution has an idea of what they need."

"So, again, I feel really strongly about this league, and I think people are missing it when they're not paying attention to the results of how well the conference has done. So it will continue to be a priority and certainly has the attention of everybody from our board on down."

"Then the CW relationship, listen, we've had a great relationship with our TV partners. Raycom has been a wonderful partner of the ACC forever, and they were incredibly helpful along with ESPN in getting the CW, and I think all of you understand distribution and eyeballs and being able."

"To be visible in all of the regions that our schools are, but across the country, and that was one of the things when I came almost, well, two and a half years ago, the frustrations that we had about "I can't find my team, I can't find some of the games."

"So they came in and took the place of Bally, who we appreciate the relationship that we have. Raycom will produce the games and be distributed on the CW. CW is getting into sports, et cetera. They have LIV Golf, and that's getting a lot of attention for different reasons, but we are really excited about that."