AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — The Atlantic Coast Conference emerged from three days of spring meetings at a posh oceanside resort with one resolution: the formalization of tiebreaker rules for the league's new no-division format in football.
Most everything else discussed behind closed doors remained secretive works in progress, most notably how the ACC plans to close the financial gap on college football's preeminent powerhouse leagues: the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference.
The ACC is a distant third in annual payouts to its members, a spot that was both chastised and celebrated at times during the meetings. It remains ahead of the Pac-12 and the Big 12, conferences that are losing flagship institutions in 2024, but far back of the Big Ten (which will gain the Pac-12's UCLA and USC) and the SEC (which will gain the Big 12's Oklahoma and Texas).
It's a less than ideal position, and it prompted Florida State athletic director Michael Alford in February to make a public plea for change and float the idea of joining the growing list of schools that announced plans to change conferences in the past two years to increase their bottom line. Three months later, Alford softened his stance and insisted he's "optimistic about the future."
"I'm thrilled with the work and the direction that it's going," Alford said this week. "Step in the right direction. We're not going to ever cover the entire gap, but it will allow you to be competitive."
Most in attendance said they believe a revised model for revenue distribution would help the most successful teams beginning with the 2024-25 school year. The proposal would send a larger share of postseason revenue to the teams participating in those events rather than dividing it equally.
The tweak would coincide with the start of the expanded (and more lucrative) College Football Playoff, which is going from four teams to 12. If you make the CFP, you get a larger share. The NCAA men's basketball tournament also would be divvied up based on performance, with deeper runs being rewarded.
Alford suggested the revisions could lead to more than $10 million annually in extra revenue for a school. The proposal still needs to be approved by ACC presidents and chancellors; league commissioner Jim Phillips said a vote could be weeks away.
"It's too early to tell," he said. "We're not that far down the road. We're not ready to announce this thing in the next week or so. ... But they've seen it, and it's got really good traction."
Several coaches and athletic directors praised it as progress.
"If you base it on your investment in football and winning football, I think we'd probably end up on the good end of that," Wake Forest football coach Dave Clawson said. "Control the controllables. That's what we control."
The new model would have no effect on the equally distributed revenue from the league's television contracts, meaning no school's intake would be reduced from what it's currently receiving.
The ACC has yet to report its 2021-22 revenue distribution, but it's expected to land around $43 million per school — roughly $30 million less than the Big Ten and the SEC. Any program $30 million short of its competitors on an annual basis could struggle to keep pace in arms races that involve recruiting budgets, facility improvements, support staffs and coaching salaries.
"Our schools have done a great job with the resources they've been given," Phillips said. "Should we be in this position? When we decided to do this deal in 2016, we had 15 schools that I think raced to the opportunity to have a (TV) network, to lock in for 20 years and all the rest of that, and I understand times change and you adjust. It's like anything else in life: It's not always a straight line. So we're figuring this thing out."
And trying to keep the league intact.
To bolt the ACC, a school would need to pay an exit fee of three times its annual revenue (approximately $120 million) and navigate the grant in media rights to the ACC to be able to broadcast future games.
Several reports suggested that as many as seven schools — Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia and Virginia Tech — had discussions about breaking the ACC's grant of rights deal. The document ties the conference together through 2036.
"I think you've got to have more than one healthy neighborhood," Phillips said. "You have to have a healthy infrastructure. ... You want national competition from coast to coast, not just regional competition.
"But at the end of the day, how much do you need to be a national champion in football and basketball and in our other sports? Do you have to be at the very top level? Do you have to spend the most to be the best? I don't know that there has been an equation that has kind of connected the two. It certainly is helpful, and it certainly allows you a greater chance."
In the meantime, the ACC has little choice but to settle for third place in the ever-changing landscape of college football. There's no guarantee it stays there or stays together.
"We just need to be competitive," Alford said. "We're the third-best media agreement right now; we want to stay the third best. We've been able to compete with them being the third-best media agreement. A lot of comes down to choices we will make with funding."
Pac-12 to enhance football broadcasts
SAN FRANCISCO — The Pac-12 will provide increased access to players and team staff during football broadcasts next season, including in-game interviews with coaches and halftime camera access.
The enhancements announced Thursday will be implemented throughout football broadcasts on ESPN, Fox Sports and the Pac-12 Network.
The expanded access also will include coaches and select athletes wired on the field during pregame activities, cameras without sound in the coaches' booths and extended handheld camera permission. Locker room camera access will be during pregame and halftime activities.
The changes will be similar to what Major League Baseball has done in recent years, and the conference said it will continue to work with the NCAA to explore additional opportunities to provide access during games.
"The Pac-12 is committed to delivering unprecedented access and entertainment to our fans throughout our football broadcasts, and to working with our media partners to be on the cutting edge of innovation," Merton Hanks, Pac-12 executive associate commissioner of football operations, said in a release. "We look forward to delivering the best possible broadcasts that give fans the insights and access that makes watching Pac-12 football even more enjoyable."