Three months ago we speculated that ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips was on the Big 10’s radar to be their next conference commissioner.
Speculation on that can end.
Sources: The Atlantic Coast Conference and commissioner Jim Phillips are finalizing a three-year contract extension that will essentially keep him atop the league through the rest of the decade, sources told ESPN.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) April 11, 2023
So Jim Phillips will remain ACC commissioner.
The consensus from ACC Twitter seems to be he got an extension for doing exactly what?
Let’s look at the list of ACC successes Phillips has made since becoming commissioner in 2021.
- He was at the helm when the ACC Network received full distribution by getting COMCAST sign up.
- Divisions were removed in Football resulting in schools playing each other more often with a 3-3-5 scheduling model
- He got the ACC Baseball and Women’s post-season tournaments off of the regional sports networks, and onto the ACC Network
All three were nice wins, especially number 1. You can’t say Phillips hasn’t done some good things, but here’s the problem.
The biggest issue on Phillips’s plate still hasn’t been resolved. The ACC Network getting full distribution was the bare minimum that needed to be done regarding raising revenue.
It’s not enough…
There’s been no public discussion of how the ACC plans to increase its media rights deal, which is the only thing that matters at the end of the day.
He tends to go weeks, even months before publically speaking and the ADs at Florida State and Clemson speaking on unequal revenue distribution speaks to an issue that Phillips doesn’t seem to have a good handle on.
Hopefully giving Phillips an extension is saying somewhere along the line that the ACC schools see something hopeful in what he is doing.
That’s all we have to go on at the moment.
Is it good that he got an extension? That remains to be seen.
