The ACC voted Friday morning to formally add California, Stanford and SMU as members of the league starting in 2024, creating an 18-team bi-coastal conference with 17 full-time football-playing members.
SMU will join the conference on July 1, 2024, with Cal and Stanford coming on a month later on Aug. 2. It’s the first time the league’s membership has extended beyond the Eastern Time Zone.
“We are thrilled to welcome three world-class institutions to the ACC, and we look forward to having them compete as part of our amazing league,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said in a news release.
The move comes in response to the SEC adding Texas and Oklahoma, the Big Ten adding USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington in recent years and the Big 12 picking apart what was left of the Pac-12 by taking Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State.
Twelve of the ACC’s 15 schools needed to approve the expansion vote in order for it to pass, with partial member Notre Dame getting a full vote. Last week, there were reports that a straw poll only showed 11 schools in favor, with Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina and NC State opposing. NC State flipped its vote, per multiple reports, tipping the balance.
The decision came after weeks of negotiations, with all three schools making considerable financial concessions to become full members. Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported Cal and Stanford will receive only a 30 percent share of TV money initially, with SMU forgoing its entire TV share for its first nine years in the conference.
ESPN reported the money being withheld will create an annual pot of revenue in the $50 million to $60 million range. Some of that will go directly to the existing 14 schools and Notre Dame and some will be added to the pool of success initiatives rewarding winning programs in the revenue sports.
Jim Phillips’ thoughts
Editor’s note: ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips spoke with the league’s media at 1:30 p.m. ET on Friday afternoon, a number of hours after the news went public. Here’s a summary of points from his press conference from David Cunningham:
The ACC has travel sorted out.
The money is always a question, but since expansion has now set up conferences that span the entire U.S., the health of student-athletes has become a larger topic. Phillips hit on that Friday afternoon, saying there was “great pause” about the student-athlete experience and what it looks like.
“In the end, there were countless hours of discussions … about how can we and how should we schedule into the future,” Phillips said.
He mentioned 14 of the league’s 28 sports won’t be affected by the move, referencing sports like track & field, cross country and golf that play in invitationals or jamborees with a number of schools at a central location.
As far as football travel is concerned, the 14 current ACC institutions will travel to California once every two years. Coming back the other way, Cal and Stanford will make 3-4 trips per year.
With men’s and women’s basketball, the East Coast universities will make two trips every four years. In those instances, it would be a Thursday-Sunday or Saturday-Monday swing to the Bay Area with matchups against both Cal and Stanford. The Bears and Cardinal are expected to make 3-4 journeys east. The schedule would be set up for those two schools to play two games against teams in close proximity — for example, Duke and North Carolina, Virginia and Virginia Tech or Miami and Florida State — in one swing.
For Olympic sports, it would potentially be one trek per season out west while Cal and Stanford would make 2-4. Baseball and softball are in their own boat, however.
“For the sport of baseball and softball, we would not do it over a week; we would do a weekend series and get those teams home,” Phillips said. “Not spending an entire week on the West Coast or vice versa.”
The vote wasn’t unanimous.
North Carolina and Florida State both released statements announcing they voted against expansion. Clemson was the other outlier. Phillips wasn’t worried, though.
“I can tell you that when we left that call today, everyone was in a really good place,” Phillips said. “… It has something for everyone. May not have had everything for everyone, but whether you voted for or not, you’re going to benefit from this new arrangement and these three world-class schools joining the ACC.”
The Commissioner referenced the leagues’ expansion in the early 2000s when it invited Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College. The vote wasn’t unanimous then, he said, similar to the current times.
“According to those that were around that time, and I talked to Commissioner [John] Swofford and others, it was the same kind of feeling that there was an awful lot of good about these three particular schools, but for whatever reason, not everyone believed that to be true,” he said. “But when you have a threshold like 80 percent, I think you can understand a great majority of the schools were in favor and are in favor, and even those that dissented voted for other things like the initiative plan that will provide some revenue in a disproportionate way and provide some rewards for those having success and investing at the athletic level.”
He harped on the success initiative a number of times, a plan that was announced in May. Though a formula hasn’t been publicized, it’s expected to reward schools that thrive in football and men’s basketball. Phillips’ message: “Let that play out. Let’s see what that looks like. Let’s see how much revenue is generated.”
There’s been no conversation yet about the location of the ACC men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
With the expansion to Texas and California, might the conference move its tournaments to a more neutral location? As ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported earlier on Friday, the ACC is interested in using Dallas a hub.
However, Phillips insisted that the league has not made a decision on the basketball tournaments, from their location to how they’ll be formatted in 2025 with 18 teams. He’s interested to hear the opinions of the head coaches and athletic directors in that regard.
“I think there’s a lot of options about where you can place the basketball tournament with what we’ve done today,” Phillips said. “And we’re going to be aggressive. But in the end, I think you have to always remember where your home bases were, where you’ve had an awful lot of success. And that has been in the state of North Carolina, it’s been Greensboro and Charlotte.”
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I wouldn’t rule out leveraging the alumni base of all there schools to work relationships and put pressure on ESPN and Disney. There may be more behind their agreement to take a smaller share than pure desperation.
Looks like the Pac 12 provided the pickings and the ACC got to choose last behind the B1G and the Big 12. 🫤
Will the ACC go to 9 conference games now?
I’d rather play Cal, Stanford, or SMU than Liberty or VMI.
I would not sweat this change too much because in 3 to 5 years college sports, especially football could have a completely different look.
Looking forward to beating Cal to avenge that Aaron Rodgers loss and beating Stanford to avenge that awful Orange Bowl loss
At least I will get to go see the Hokie teams play regularly here in Texas!
Just hate it! But now we have “tradable assets” for when college sports regroups from the current lunacy.
That’ll probably require a very deep recession or depression though……
The new All Coastal Conference is an usual group. Seems like SMU would have been a better fit with Big 12, but I get the idea that “fit” doesn’t mean much anymore. What’s the over/under on when FSU bolts? My guess is 2 years but wouldn’t be surprised if it’s sooner.
The GOR is still in effect for another, what… 12 or 13 years? And the ACC is locked in with Disney for that period, right? The Pac-12 was with Fox, wasn’t it? So the B1G likely gets the Fox money? Does that free up any ABC cash to renegotiate with the expanded ACC?
A lot of questions to address before FSU and Clemson throw their hands up and bolt. I think the GOR buys the ACC a little time to work that out.
It is a sad day in collegiate athletics. Schools care more about $$$ than student welfare.
Seems to me the additional travel cost for the non revenue sports will exceed any Football monetary benefit.
If ESPN is footing the bill prorata for any additions, I’d be squeezing OSU and WSU to come in at a rate less than Cal and Stanford (but more than SMU). Take it or go to the WAC Beavs and Cougs. Then you’d have a West coast pod.
Does this mean conference games currently scheduled with change for next year?
Yes and we’ll play in Charlottesville next year! TIC
is this football & bb only which i once herd?
This addition kind of “is what it is”.
Existing members get an improved deal from now through 2030 than what they had before.
After 2030, it’s close enough to the expiration of everything to renegotiate or see a bunch of the programs pay to get out and join the Big 10 or SEC
In what world is SMU a better play than WVU?
Adding Stanford and Cal raises the IQ average, but we already have Duke and Wake, who offer little if anything other than tier 1 academics.
Feels like desperation in my view. Ugh.
Academics, Money, and TV Market?
Dallas I guess
In what world was WVU looking to leave the Big 12? I’d like to have WVU but the fans I talked weren’t interested in a pay cut.
ACC and B12 similar in pay. Particularly when you consider travel.
That’s with regards to full shares. And would any additions come in at full share? I’m just saying I don’t think WVU was looking to switch or find a home…these three were and took less money to do so. The ACC should have tried to get them years ago!
The new ACC will certainly not have any academic rivals. Let’s see that’s 9 1st rier (Top 50) schools. But who is going to compete vs. Stanford in Squash?.
Not to mention fencing.
But who is going to compete vs. Stanford in Squash?.>>>>
Our ag folks will figure that one out.
To me this makes more sense if we just become the “Coastal Conference,” add enough west coast schools to go back to divisions with the west coast teams playing each other regularly, same for the east coast teams, then meeting for tournaments and championships. Football could have a cross-division weekend or something to bring in some new matchups between the east coast and west coast teams.
Or, maybe just drop regional reference from conference names and use something that makes more sense, i.e., Conference 1, Conference 2, Conference 3 etc. or A,B,C,D, or (you pick ‘em).
A friend suggested we could accommodate some progressive thinkers and call it the Bi-Coastal Conference.
Interesting, just read an article in Dallas Morning News that said SMU would be a sports hub for the west schools and east schools to travel to for games to reduce travel cost. (Olympic Sports)
Maybe they can poach Vandy and Northwestern and become the Wanna-Be-Ivy League.
Just further reinforcement of a bad, outdated, and unchangeable TV contract. A contract that is leading to more irrelevance than relevance. 😏
Yea, but we weren’t getting out of that anyways. We may remain a second-tier conference, but we won’t go the way of the PAC-12 any time soon.
Yup – it’s the TV market for sure.
Yeah, but we will be one of the Power 4 instead of one of the Power 5.
Exciting for Hokies that live in DFW. We now get to see the Hokies in person when they travel to play SMU.
Never a bad trip to go to the Bay Area as well.
Did we have much of a choice? Not really, IMHO.
I saw on Twitter (Tim Thomas) that Virginia Tech voting to admit Cal and Stanford was opposed by the Athletic Department.
They then went on to say that VT voting to admit them was Tim Sands’ way of trying to curry favor with two AAU members for possible AAU admission.
Has TSL heard anything like this?
Two desperate parties putting a band aid on a gaping wound. Why is ND going to benefit, and who pays for all the travel costs? I would think the travel cost would cancel out the extra money, darn near make it a wash. Atlantic Coast? Time to change the name….in fact why not disband the conference and start over? All pretty silly and reeks of utter desperation by a conference stuck by bad previous decisions. But then again, there really are no other options, just not sure this really accomplished anything as far as being more competitive with SEC and B1G.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Any money made in addition to adding the schools will be a wash, paying for all the expenses of our Olympic teams, especially to travel out west. Sorry guys I just don’t get it.
How about, “The American Coastal Conference?” That’s still, “ACC.”
Thanks, NCSU for seeing the future – no matter how uncertain it is.
Can’t wait till VT travels west – Stanford one week-end and Cal the next. Looks like a week in wine country in between. 🙂
BTW – great news for UVa and VT’s Engineering/Arch and Biz schools.
Yeah – there are negatives – but it sure beats looking at a future schedule with ECU, Liberty, ODU, JMU, VMI, etx.
Please explain how this is great news for UVa and VT’s Engineering/Arch and Biz schools?
I THINK it is because Stanford and Cal are first class academic institutions.
OK, but my question is still not answered: how does this affect/help VT and in what way, exactly?
Think this through – and connect the dots. Start with the Innovation Campus. Then think about the Nobel prize winners, etc at Cal and Stanford. Think about access to more corporate investments – by both sides. Think about what it means for competition for acceptance to both UVa and VT.
BTW – how do you measure distance in economics – or on the internet.
These are incremental values that all add up to potentially something very bib.
Plus – we live to live another 5 to 10 years. .
Then throw a dark cloud over what the future would be without these additions. Ah – the gap grows wider. It’s a new world business model – that’s outside the simple realm of athletics.
Thank you!!!!!! Jeez, it’s like these guys think ECU and WVU compete with Stanford and Cal. Folks – get an academic grip. World class institutions here. WVU is cutting foreign languages and getting reamed nationally for it. This is about *saving* the ACC first and then establishing a new identity again with WORLD CLASS universities.
I live in California and am jacked for this. I go to Stanford and Cal games and look forward to being able to recruit Miramonte, Acalanes, De La Salle…. Miami got a string of QBs from Miramonte in the 90’s.
I live in Boise and I agree. It will make it a lot easier to catch a game on years I can’t make it back east if they are playing a game at Cal or Stanford.
One day, If /when ACC falls apart. I believe we are a great choice for Big 12 AND will want this group vs bringing in 2nd rate mid-atlantic teams (ECU, Liberty, ODU, JMU, VMI.) to leftover ACC.
Yeah, looking forward to that west coast trip. Although I hope SanFran has recovered some by then.
Controversial I know, but I think it’s the right move
Need to add Oregon State and Washington State and have 3 divisions, west, north, south. For all sports except football and basketball
west division only plays conference games within its division. they come together only for sport conference championships. 8 teams compete. 2 from 5 team west and 3 each from 7 & 8 team north and south.
All of this will not matter by time TV contract expires as there will be a super conference for football.
makes sense to me!
Agreed. I hope this is part of another move which adds more west coast teams. All in all, none of this is sustainable. I expect the NCAA to fall apart by 2030…
I like the idea of adding to the western footprint and setting up conferences to limit the long-distance travel. There are other intrigiuing schools out west that could be worth consideration like Colorado with Coach Prime and The Air Force Academy. I always thought adding the Service Academies into a league together would generate some interest.
I agree 100%. All three are decent brands and more valuable brands than Syracuse, BC and Pitt. Cuse, BC and Pitt only contribute misery to the conference in being teams that are incapable of winning consistently, yet capable of sinking another team’s season. You get no credit for beating them (because you should) and killed for losing. Part of conference membership should be protecting your teams. We failed to do this with BC, ‘Cuse and Pitt. The B1G and SEC each have one team that can ruin your season with a loss. B1G has Rutgers and SEC has Vanderbilt. I don’t know if the conference can vote out teams, but I wouldn’t be opposed to not having those three teams in the conference eventually.
How about, “The American Coastal Conference?” That’s still, “ACC.”
Options were not good. This was the best.