ACC Commissioner Talks NCAA Future With NIL

A year into his tenure, the commissioner of the ACC is tasked with preparing the conference for a radically different future.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers and West Virginia aren't scheduled to kick off the first full weekend of the 2022 college football season for months, but the sport is already in high gear. 

After star Panthers receiver Jordan Addison's decision to transfer sparked a period of rampant uncertainty about college football's present and future, the ACC, of which Pitt is a member, held their spring meetings with the hope that they can make sense of the frenzied past two weeks. 

As a foreign and foggy college football landscape materializes in front of him, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips tried to convey serenity and a sense that his conference has clear direction despite all the unknowns when he spoke with assembled media on Wednesday afternoon. 

First and foremost, Phillips had to field questions about NIL and the transfer portal, the two phenomena that have sparked an unprecedented era of free player movement in college athletics, particularly for men's basketball and football. With one of his member schools and most recent football champion at the center of the sport's biggest controversy today, Phillips said that the conference needs to accept the current landscape as it is and adapt to find its place in that landscape. 

"We're not unwinding NIL," Phillips said. "We are in the environment we are. ... So I certainly didn't say to [ACC coaches] 'Hey, just give me a little bit of time and it'll be just like it was four years ago'. ... I don't believe in that philosophically ... and I don't believe it from a pragmatic standpoint either."

While Phillips insisted that he is supportive of the players' right to earn money off of their name, image and likeness, he emphasized the need for regulation. He implored for the federal government to step in, but didn't seem optimistic that it will come any time soon. 

"We need federal legislation," Phillips said. "If there's an expectation to play a national schedule and to have inter-conference and cross-conference pollination of games and competition, and were trying to stay somewhat fair ... then we all need to be abiding by at least some parameters, ... We need some help. ... But it really doesn't feel like it's a priority in Washington, D.C. right now."

His desire for federal oversight stems from an apparent lack of faith in the authority of the NCAA, which has been weakened by some public, humiliating losses in court that have exposed serious legal weaknesses in its amateurism model. 

During the meetings, Notre Dame men's basketball head coach Mike Brey said he doesn't believe the NCAA is equipped to enforce NIL rules and prevent illicit recruiting. Phillips used some more diplomatic language but echoed Brey's sentiment and said that the impending new college sports order will likely mean that individual conferences and institutions will need to bear the responsibilities of enforcement.

As a member of the NCAA's Transformation Committee, which has been charged with determining how the NCAA will meet these present and future challenges, Phillips has had to consider the NCAA's place heavily. Phillips said he thinks that, if the NCAA is going to continue to exist, it will be in a reduced capacity with local institutions governing themselves more often. 

"I think it's going to be a trimmed down NCAA," Phillips said. "I think more authority and administrative work and responsibility is going to fall on the conferences and more is going to fall on the institutional level. ... We need to decide what we want the NCAA to do."

Phillips said that what shape the NCAA takes will also determine who is selected as the organization's next president after current office-holder Mark Emmert steps down next summer.

Perhaps the most important part of that process will be establishing constraints on the intersection of recruiting and NIL. Phillips said that the conferences will play a larger role in balancing fair compensation for the players with pay-for-play schemes that would mar any remaining sense of competitive balance. He said he doesn't know where that balance lies yet and that it will be determined in conjunction with the ACC's members as well as other schools and conferences from across the country. 

But Phillips closed his time with media by trying to exude level-headedness, claiming that these changes -- while radical -- will not spell the end of college sports. 

"So we have the transfer portal and we have name, image and likeness and, you know what? Today we woke up and we were still moving college sports forward. ... It may not look the same, but what has stayed the same over the past 50, 40 or 30 years?"

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