ACC pushes west with Stanford, Cal and SMU to join in 2024

By Brian Murphy, WRAL sports investigative reporter

The Atlantic Coast Conference voted Friday morning to invite Cal, Stanford and SMU, dramatically expanding its geographic footprint to the West Coast for a marginal increase in revenue that can be used to mollify disgruntled current members.

The additions of two schools in Northern California and one in Texas will bring the North Carolina-based league's total membership to 18 schools, including Notre Dame, which remains a football independent.

The expansion approval came over objections from the league's three biggest brands: North Carolina, Clemson and Florida State. All three will join for the 2024-25 academic year with SMU becoming a full member on July 1 and Stanford and Cal on August 2.

"This will help the ACC in multiple ways," ACC commissioner Jim Phillips told WRAL.

How they voted

Twelve schools voted yes on adding the schools with sterling academic reputations but no sustained recent success in the all-important sports of football and men's basketball. NC State, which reportedly had been among the holdouts, sided with supporters.

"The NC State brand, and historical competitiveness of our programs, is already well-recognized and established," NC State chancellor Randy Woodson said in a statement to WRAL. "The addition of these outstanding universities gives us even greater opportunities to build on the Wolfpack's national presence, which in turn will generate more long-term benefits for our student-athletes, our athletic programs and our loyal fan base."

Florida State president Richard McCullough said his school voted no. "There are many complicated factors that led us to vote no," he said.

Clemson indicated it did not support the expansion. "We respect the conference membership's decision," the school said in a statement.

North Carolina chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said his "vote against expansion was informed from feedback I have gathered over the last several weeks from our athletic leadership, coaches, faculty athletic advisors, student-athletes and a variety of other stakeholders."

Several UNC officials had been vocal in their opposition. Legendary UNC women's soccer coach Anson Dorrance denounced the expansion plan. The leaders of UNC-Chapel Hill's Board of Trustees sent a letter Thursday night saying a "strong majority" of the 13-member board opposes expansion.

"The travel distances for routine in-conference competitive play are too great for this arrangement to make sense for our student athletes, coaches, alumni and fans," wrote David L. Boliek, Jr., and John P. Preyer, the chair and vice chair of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees. "Furthermore, the economics of this newly imagined transcontinental conference do not sufficiently address the income disparity ACC members face."

Despite the opposition, Phillips was able to get expansion over the finish line. Expansion includes "something for everyone. It may not have everything for everyone," he said. Each school will receive a small bump in revenue distribution and other monies will be made available based on performance.

The additions also provide some stability in case members do leave, Phillips said.

"You either get busy or you get left behind," he said.

The ACC has been seeking ways to increase its bottom line as the SEC and Big Ten have surged ahead in revenue generation through significant additions and record-setting television rights agreements. The SEC will have 16 teams, including Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12, in 2024. The Big Ten will have 18 teams, including Oregon, USC, UCLA and Washington from the Pac-12, in 2024.

"(It) gives you strength and stability and ability to make sure if anything happens with your league and a school wants to go," Phillips said.

New schools react

The schools agreed to accept less than a full share from the ACC's television rights deal in order to remain in a top conference, particularly one with other top academic schools and very good all-around athletic programs.

Stanford has the most storied all-around athletic program in the nation, winning 26 of 29 NCAA Director's Cups for all-around excellence. The university said it expects 22 of its 36 sports will see either no scheduling changes or minimal scheduling impacts. Stanford offers some sports, such as water polo, that the ACC does not sponsor.

“Student-athletes come to Stanford to pursue their highest academic and athletic potential, and joining the ACC gives us the ability to continue offering them that opportunity at a national level,” Stanford president Richard P. Saller said in a statement released by the league.

Cal will contribute back a portion of media revenue to current member institutions, the school said. Its contribution will taper off until the 10th year, at which point it will begin retaining 100% of its media revenue share, the school said. The fact that annual revenue will increase over time was an important factor in the agreement, the school said in its statement.

Cal projects that 19 of its 30 sports will experience either no or minimal change with regard to travel.

"We are confident that the ACC and its constituent institutions are an excellent match for our university and will provide an elite competitive context for our student-athletes in this changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics," Cal chancellor Carol T. Christ said.

SMU, a private school located in Dallas, is a member of the American Athletic Conference. The Mustangs built a football power in the early 1980s in the powerful Southwest Conference but committed a slew of violations in the process, including paying players. The NCAA handed SMU the first — and, to date, only — "death penalty" in 1987, folding the Mustangs' program for a season.

With deep-pocketed donors willing to foot the bill to return to an upper-echelon conference, SMU reportedly will forgo media rights payments for several years in the ACC.

“This is a transformational day for SMU,” SMU president R. Gerald Turner said in a statement. "Becoming a member of the ACC will positively impact all aspects of the collegiate experience on the Hilltop and will raise SMU’s profile on a national level.”

Strength in numbers for ACC

ESPN owns the ACC's television rights through 2036, and the current members are bound by a prohibitive grant of rights agreement through that time, making it all but impossible — at least now – to leave the league.

As part of that agreement, ESPN will pay the league for additional schools. With the incoming schools taking less than a full share, the ACC can use the difference to help offset additional travel costs for current members and add money to a new success initiative, designed to reward teams for on-field success. How that money gets divided has been a point of contention.

Phillips said the new schools have signed the grant of rights, and that the agreement is not diminished or altered in any way with new signatories.

A group of seven ACC schools, including North Carolina and NC State, held discussions about trying to find a way around the grant of rights earlier this year. Florida State's leadership said it would consider leaving the ACC if the revenue situation does not change.

"Unless something drastic changes on the revenue side at the ACC, it's not a matter of if we leave, in my opinion, it's a matter of how and when we leave," said FSU trustee Drew Weatherford, a former quarterback for the Seminoles.

The league generated $616.9 million last year.

If top members do leave the league, additions like Cal, Stanford and SMU could help the conference rebuild and, perhaps, avoid the Pac-12's fate. The league has just two remaining members in Oregon State and Washington State, which may end up in a lower-revenue league like the Mountain West or American Athletic Conference.

The ACC's television deal is third among conferences — and that's unlikely to change anytime soon. The rights agreements for the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 expire before the ACC. But with the cable television market suffering, rights deals may not continue their staggering growth leaving the ACC in a better position.

Travel and Notre Dame

Phillips said league and school officials have spent weeks looking at travel logistics, one of the top concerns in creating a transcontinental conference.

He said the current 14 members will make one trip for football to the West Coast every two years, two trips every four years for men's and women's basketball and zero to one trip each year in Olympic sports.

Phillips said Stanford and Cal will make three to four trips East each year for football, basketball and Olympic sports. He said the league will try to schedule Stanford around its quarter system, which starts later in the fall.

Notre Dame, which publicly pushed for adding Cal and Stanford, will continue to play five games against ACC football teams each season. The Irish and Stanford play annually, but that game is now in jeopardy. Phillips said Stanford, Cal and SMU will be part the rotation of schools that play Notre Dame.

"Notre Dame provides the dates for the five conference games and the ACC office puts the tams in from our conference on a rotational basis," Phillips said.

Atlantic Coast Conference history

The expansion vote comes in the same week that the ACC officially moved into its new Charlotte headquarters.

"We really tried to look at how we modernized the ACC, how we get our forward-facing ACC brand in a different light across not only in the region, but across the country," ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said Tuesday at a press conference in Charlotte.

The conference had been headquartered in Greensboro since its founding in 1953 with seven members — Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, South Carolina, Wake Forest. Virginia joined the same year.

South Carolina left in 1971 for independence, and Georgia Tech was added in 1979. Florida State made it a nine-team league when it joined in 1991.

Miami and Virginia Tech joined in 2004 from the Big East, the beginning of an exodus from that conference into the ACC. Boston College joined in 2005. Pittsburgh and Syracuse joined in 2013, along with Notre Dame for its non-football sports. When charter member Maryland left for the Big Ten, Louisville joined the ACC in 2014.

Now the league has expanded into Texas and all the way to the Pacific.

Phillips said: "It really is a transformational day for the ACC."