Good morning, everyone. Let me start by welcoming each of you to the 2023 AC C football kickoff. We thank you for coming to Charlotte and for your time and investment in covering the AC C our membership and intercollegiate athletics. I also want to recognize AC C network for its live coverage of our now three day event. If there's anything we can help you with throughout the event, please let me or our staff know before I share some thoughts about the conference and our tremendous student athletes. I want to pause and remember three important members of the AC C family. At the end of last season, we tragically lost the junior student athletes, Lavale Davis, Junior Devin Chandler. The there are still no words that can fully express our collective grief over this devastating and senseless loss. Our hearts and prayers remain with their families, teammates and the entire University of Virginia community and Lavelle Devin and Deshaun, you will never be forgotten by your AC C family. It's a privilege to be here and to share the incredible excitement that's happening in the AC C. Let me start by acknowledging the city of Charlotte, our new conference home just a few blocks away on the 12th floor of the Legacy Union building renovation work will soon be complete and our staff will be moving into this space in the weeks ahead. Since announcing our relocation back in September, there has been a lot of positive energy between the city, the conference and our membership. We've already held multiple league meetings in uptown which simultaneously provided the opportunity for our school leaders to meet with community and business leaders and the many sports teams that call Charlotte Home as we ramp up our presence in Charlotte in the weeks and months ahead, we anticipate strengthening our relationship with the city through meaningful partnerships including future events and championships with nearly 90,000 AC C school alumni in the Queen City. Our bond is already strong running parallel to our office relocation is a new strategic marketing and branding initiative that we began in January after a thorough process that included not only the conference but our 15 member schools, we are proud to be partnering with Wasserman and their creative agency, laundry service. We look forward to the next month when we look to launch in conjunction with our schools, our new forward facing brand campaign that will be inclusive of television, radio, out of home, and digital and social assets. In addition to our focus on our future in Charlotte, we remain in constant communication with Disney and ESPN as there is no single business partnership in our industry that is valued more than with the conferences, media rights holders. And certainly one of the most turbulent times in history for both media and college sports. I and the AC C have never felt better about our relationship than we do today. Our commitment to collaborate on ways to advance the AC C from both the revenue and exposure standpoint has been unwavering the work that's been done over this past year, particularly in the last six months. As the Disney leadership and ESPN has been solidified, has been incredibly important to our partnership, Jimmy Burke Magnus Roz Duran, Nick Dawson and their entire team have been terrific and collectively, we have one agreed on a comprehensive, mutually beneficial growth and innovation strategy moving forward and second put in motion several priority initiatives. The combination of which we believe will transform our conference for years to come. Our schools and fans will immediately benefit from significantly increased AC C football, television exposure on ABC and ESPN platforms, elevated production value and innovative creative approaches tied to those ABC broadcasts, a commitment to greater integration of AC C schools across all aspects of the network, production, programming, storytelling, sales and marketing in a collective mission to enhance and grow this unique and very valuable, shared venture, meaningful new events and programming led by the debut of the AC CE C men's and women's basketball challenges exclusively on the ESPN family of networks near and longer term initiatives include continued creative approaches across all 28 AC C sponsored sports, especially in football and men's women's basketball. Significant partnerships on data and technology, coordinated strategies around the quickly evolving direct to consumer marketplace, deeper campus integrations across a range of areas including programming and production enhancements, coordinated brand positioning, marketing, and promotional programs, and most importantly, corporate sales opportunities in some a comprehensive commitment from the top leadership levels to support our shared goals to innovate, grow and thrive competitively holistically and financially into the next decade and beyond. In addition to these future initiatives, there were significant enhancements that took place this past year in August ESPN acquired the rights to the AC C women's basketball tournament and baseball championships, giving AC C an exclusive coverage to the preliminary rounds of both events as part of these marquee events. In addition to other championships, AC CN was on site throughout with live studio programming in February. The AC C announced a partnership with Disney and Ally, whose headquarters are across the street from our new office that Ally was becoming an official sponsor. In addition to their sponsorship of the league, ally is the title sponsorship sponsor of the AC C women's basketball tournament and women's soccer championship and was the presented sponsor of the 2023 AC C Women's Lacrosse championship. Our relationship directly benefits our 15 member institutions, 28 sponsored sports and nearly 10,000 student athletes. We are also thrilled with our collective commitment to the support and advancement of women's sports. And I applaud our Disney and ESPN partners for working aggressively to foster this amazing relationship. I will share some additional thoughts on television in the upcoming season. But let me first address some timely league and national topics. First. I'm proud that our president and chancellors and our athletic athletic directors continue to have healthy, honest and direct conversations about working together as we collectively navigate the future. I'm well aware of the narrative and stories surrounding the AC C and our members, as well as the frustrations of some of our schools and our financials, but these are not new. The initiatives I just mentioned combined with future endeavors are designed to ensure that the AC C remains a healthy and vibrant conference that competes at the highest level and is capable of winning nine national titles like this past year, if not more at the end of May. Following an analysis and discussion that took place throughout the past year, the board announced its endorsement of a success incentive initiative that will begin during the 2024 25 academic year. Under this initiative, financial distribution enhancements based on team performances from revenue generating postseason competition will allow our schools to invest and achieve additional revenue. The working group of presidents and chancellors continue to make progress and following a full board decision in the future will certainly share more details while there are legitimate discussions and stories regarding revenue and our membership, it's important that all of us never lose perspective on just what we are doing together. The last two years, the AC C leads all conference conferences and NCAA titles. All 15 schools won an AC C regular season or championship title. This past year, academically, there are no better collection of schools and our student athlete experience and support beyond athletics and academics is second to none. The bottom line is that our confidence is strong and I'm extremely bullish about our future together from a national perspective. Our conference continues to be a leader in efforts to find solutions for college athletics. Most pressing issues we remain focused, which includes making frequent trips to Washington DC on working with our representatives to find a national solution solution to the race to the bottom from state legislators addressing name and like the AC C remains strongly in favor of our student athletes benefiting from the use of their name, image and likeness. The framework that we continue to advance includes preempting the patchwork of inconsistent state laws through federal legislation is critical to providing clarity for our student athletes and institutions. There's a need to reaffirm that the student institution relationship is just that our athletes are students, not employees. The college athletics enterprise must also be able to enhance and adapt the student athletic experience without the constant threat of lawsuits that use funds for defense that could otherwise benefit our student athletes. At the same time, we have been crystal clear about the need to protect our student athletes from bad actors through agent certification, transparency and consistent disclosure of deals and continued education of student athletes around financial literacy and personal branding. We owe this to all our student athletes. I applaud recent efforts on both sides of the aisle in Congress to work together and address these issues. The AC C continues to fully engage to ensure that this momentum towards a national solution continues. AC C institutions do a great job of providing support for its student athletes and the protections we seek align with what our student athletes are asking for as well. We remain close to our AC C student athlete advisory committee who is here with us today to make sure we are listening to what's most important to the overwhelming majority of our student athletes. At this time, I'd like to ask our SAC representatives to stand and be recognized. Our student athletes and those that compete in other leagues represent not only themselves, their families, schools and conferences and even their countries as we look ahead to the 2024 Olympic Games consider this currently, there are more than 100 current or former ac athletes from 15 sports training on us. National teams that aim to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games. 2023 fino world Championships began on July 22 and 11 different ac swimmers will represent team USA and their schools on the international stage. Team usa's opening match of the 2023 FIFA World World Cup. This past Friday, five AC athletes from four different schools wore the red, white and blue as team USA seeks to claim its third consecutive championships title this summer. Speaking of the women's World Cup, a total of 29 current and former AC C student athletes representing nine different countries are competing on this year's biggest stage. College sports has been incredibly important and successful in providing broad based programming and educational opportunities for young men and women, which is why it is imperative for the college community to address today's challenges wherever possible. In addition to any assistance we received from Washington DC, how might the college community and the AC C continue to lead in order to bring more clarity and sanity to the current environment. First NC regulations currently prohibit inducements and pay for play. These restrictions must be addressed via a robust national enforcement effort to the extent possible within current state nil laws. Second NC A regulations currently prohibit boosters from engaging in the recruitment of prospects, the reports of booster engagement and recruiting through collectives and other efforts under the label of nil are widespread. I will repeat, I strongly and the conference strongly support student athletes ability to monetize their name, image and likeness through endorsement contracts, social media opportunities and other legitimate nil activities, payments by boosters tied to attendance at a specific institution is not legitimate nil activity. Third, we must act to develop guard rails to ensure that student athletes have access to nil opportunities by inducements as well as reliable information about legitimate nil opportunities and value. The recent unprecedented transfers of student athletes are tainted by inducements disguised as nil money. Too many student athletes enter the transport quarter based on rumor or bad advice only to find they have no place to go. It's the ultimate game of musical chairs. This is detrimental to their education and future. Mustang. We can assist you now by providing as much transparency as possible. Regarding N I fourth, we must also act to ensure that student athletes have access to legitimate representation in the form of certified agents and are making decisions informed by facts, not empty promises made to recruit the athlete. The current opportunities for student athletes are immense and I will continue to work with others in the college community to protect those opportunities and ensure they are untainted by inducements, bad actors and false promises as commissioner and in unison with the leadership of the league, inclusive of our CEO S A DS administrators and coaches. We will continue to fight for a system that provides access and affordable higher education annually to almost 10,000 AC C student athletes. We will continue to fight for a system that has provided countless opportunities for young men and women to develop the skills necessary to become leaders when they otherwise may not have had access to college. We will fight for a system that provides the opportunity for student athletes to realize their dream of being a professional athlete or representing their country on the biggest international stages. And we will fight for a system that has done so much to advance women's sports in this country, which is, which has even more meaning to me as a father of five, with a daughter playing collegiate soccer. I've enjoyed collaborating with new NCAA President Charlie Baker. As have our board of directors and athletic directors. There is significant work ahead and we look forward to being part of the progress and ultimate solutions for the betterment of all students. The college football playoff has been an ongoing storyline and the AC C continues to be supportive of the expanded playoff. This past year, we led an effort that made significant progress and resolutions surrounding a college football 365 day calendar. This initiative has already led to meaningful changes related to player safety that are reflected in the new playing rules that begin this fall. This includes the clock continuing to run after first downs unless it occurs inside two minutes in either half, which will limit the number of student athlete contact exposures heading into this year. The AC C has placed the second most teams in the CFP since the inception of A playoff. And over the last decade, the AC C has won the second most football national championships. Before I continue, I do want to take a minute to acknowledge the recent retirement announcement by CFP, executive director, Bill Hancock. Bill is a wonderful friend who has led postseason college football for nearly two decades with incredible steadiness, his love for college athletics and specifically the student athletes is unwavering and we look forward to celebrating him and Nicky as they move on to the next chapter. Today, we are here to celebrate the AC C and look ahead to the upcoming football season and we have so much to be proud of as a conference. It was another record breaking year as our teams combined to capture the most NC A championships of any conference with a league record nine national titles and the 16 NCAA titles over the last two academic years are also the most of any conference. In addition, 17 AC C teams joined the conference's nine NC champions by reaching the finals or semi finals in their respective sport with seven playing in the national championship game, including an all AC C contest in women's tennis and the cross 16 AC C programs finished the year ranked either number one or number two in the final polls, the most of all conferences and in the final Deerfield directors Cup standings, six schools ranked among the top 20 the 21st consecutive year that four or more AC C schools have placed in the top 30 nationally from an academic perspective. There's no stronger collection of institutions than those in the AC C, whether it's national academic rankings, graduation, success rates, academic performance rates or other lists of distinction. This lead shines each month. I invite student athletes to join our full staff meetings and we hear countless stories from them that the opportunity to leave with a degree, sometimes multiple degrees is priceless. This is another area that hits home as this past spring. Our oldest son completed his second AC C degree while finishing his eligibility as a track student athlete. And he's just one of many examples within the conference beyond the classrooms and athletic competition. The AC C remains committed to the ongoing work in racial and social justice, health and safety and professional development. Two weeks ago, we held the 2023 AC C unity tour in Washington DC. This year's event followed the inaugural tour that took place in Selma and Montgomery last summer, which is absolutely amazing during our four days in DC, 10 representatives from each of our 15 schools participated in an immersive experience called Awareness to Action. It was an incredible trip that allowed us to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and experience the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. The visit also included a gender equity and sports panel sponsored by our Orange bowl partners in May. Our league partnered with the US Council for Athletes Health to further the 15 institutions collective commitment to providing comprehensive services to our student athletes. The partnership is overseen by the AC C health care administrators group which includes experts from each of our member institutions. We collaborate on conference wide athletic medicine, health and safety initiatives including this, the league's annual Health and Safety Summit. In addition, AC C sports medicine professionals now have 24 7 access to the council's membership platform, strategically designed to assist our schools in providing unsurpassed health care. Our league and member institutions committed continue to be committed to broad based programs and the opportunities they provide. On July 1st, our league officially welcomed gymnastics as its 28 sponsored sport and 15th women's sports offering the 15 women's sports are the most among our peer conferences and no other peer conference sports conference sponsors. More than 28 sports. We are 37 days away from when AC C football kicks off the 2023 season. I know there is great excitement and anticipation. We welcome two new head coaches to the league. Georgia Tech's Brent Key and Louisville's Jeff Brown. Both are terrific additions to an outstanding group of coaches currently in the AC C. Following the 2022 regular season, we announced Alberto River on as the new AC C supervisor of officials al joined the league after serving as an NFL rules analyst for the past few years and was previously the nfl's senior VP of officiating. He brings a distinguished 30 year career as both an NCAA and NFL on field official and an officiating administrator. I just finished the league's football officiating clinic last week and will be available later today in this room. During that time, I encourage you to ask about our efforts. Since his arrival, his campus travels to meet with the coaches and his collaboration with our officials. This spring we hired eight position supervisors who have all worked in D one college football and all but one currently serves as an NFL official. During the season. These supervisors will assist in evaluating every AC C game to ensure consistency across all on field officiating positions. Once again, the A CCS nonconference schedule is arguably the toughest in the country. 25 games against power, five opponents, 11 nonconference games against teams ranked in the final 2022 associated press top 25 poll, 27 games against opponents that appeared in a bowl game last year and 11 nonconference games against teams at espn's 2023. Way too early. Top 25. The season will begin on Thursday, August 31st with our teams featured in 12 games over five straight days. Northern League plays across all five days on Labor Day weekend and this is the fifth time in the last seven years. And yes, I'm planning to try to get to every one of those opening games. If you want to join me, please let me know, I'll take you along. Last summer. The league announced that 2023 would be the first of its new 355 conference scheduling model that provides significant enhancements. The most important of which is that our student athletes will have a chance to play every school, both home and away over a four year period. The model eliminates divisions with the top two teams based on winning percentage competing in the AC C football championship game at the Bank of America Stadium on the first Saturday of December following the regular season and championship game, our teams will have the opportunity to compete in the college football playoff or participate in a bowl game anchored by our partnership with the capital one Orange bowl. The AC has 12 amazing bowl destinations throughout the country that all provide memorable experiences as I indicated earlier and in conjunction with our partners at ESPN, we have significantly increased AC C football, television exposure on ABC and ESPN platforms. During the first three weeks, the AC C has scheduled a pair of games on ABC, Saturday night football as well as 11 appearances on ABC ESPN ESPN2. In total, seven AC C contests are scheduled for national ABC broadcast and AC C network will also feature 13 games. In fact of the 10 full national ABC telecast, seven of them feature seven different institutions We also thrilled that ESPN'S college game Day announced yesterday that they will be live from the Queen City on Saturday, September 2 college football's premier pregame show will air ahead of the prime time Duke's Mail Classic featuring North Carolina. In addition to our partners at ESPN, we welcome the CW network to our lineup of broadcast partners. Beginning this year. The CW will broadcast 13 AC C football games throughout the regular season. Ray Cop will produce the games and we are thrilled with the CWS national distribution beginning in August AC C network will embark on the third annual AC C football road trip. Once again, this initiative will deliver 14 1 hour shows airing in prime time from each of our campuses following this forum. I'll invite the AC C Network to come up and make an announcement. There continues to be significant excitement surrounding the future of AC CN and its football program before I close and unrelated to the AC C I do want to briefly address the ongoing matter at Northwestern because I'm sure some of you have questions. As you are aware, I released a statement last week. This is a very difficult time for the Northwestern community and my heart goes out to any person who carries the burden of mistreatment or who hasn't been harmed in any way. During my 30 year career in college athletics. My highest priority has always been the health and safety of all student athletes as you know, with this matter in litigation, I'm unable to share anything more at this time. I'm happy to address your questions about the AC C and the AC C football. So let me turn it over to Amy and we'll get started. Thanks. We will get to as many questions as we can here this morning. We do have multiple microphone holders placed throughout the room. So if you could make sure I see you grab your, grab my attention, we'll get to as many as we can. Please give us your name and affiliation. As soon as you get the mic and ask your questions. We're going to take our first one over here on the right hand side, Andrea Elson ESPN dot com, Jim, you've talked a lot about exposure for football with AC and having one of those windows with the preseason expectations for Florida State and Clemson headed into this year. How important is it? Do you feel for the AC C to be able to capitalize on some of these bigger windows with some of its marquee programs to help change the perception and the narrative? Good question, Andrea, I think for all of us, you get into the competitive AC C season and it's a little bit of a cannibalization. So your point of differentiation, I think for all conferences ends up being the non conference games. And so we have to get off to a really good start. It doesn't having a really good season if you don't. But if you stumble once or twice, it's really difficult to overcome that. So you mentioned a couple of our teams and I think we have a whole host of others that also can have a really good season. And, you know, sometimes our ranked teams act just like that and perform right off the gate in a, in a high level. But sometimes those teams that aren't ranked or maybe at the bottom of the top 25 really start to gel. So I'm really excited about it. I've had a chance to, you know, really dig in my remark about the C FBI just think sometimes it's lost because of whatever narrative is out there. We're second at most in titles and appearances in the CFP. And I think that equates in modern day football to having success. We're gonna take our second question from here in the middle section. Second row Royal Health Care is a commissioner a year ago in the same room, you mentioned a man name N I players seem to love it, but coaches seem to have a about players gonna make money off their name. Image of like recently mentioned college, college football being a complete disaster right now with NIO, what is your call? The college football as a whole? And do you think is just a disaster? How they me to Yeah, I, I think here's where uh name and likeness is, is off the track. And that is what I described about Washington DC. For, for certain, there's the student athletes deserve the opportunity um to engage in name, image and likeness. And I had a chance to address that group yesterday and we've been a strong component of that where it's really difficult is these disproportionate state by state rules of legislation. And that's what we're trying to change. And I think as you look at the NC A and the history of it, we, we've kind of all raised our right hand and indicated, hey, we'll follow these rules. We may not like all of them and we'll follow them. But the current legislation is so disproportionate about what you can do in one state versus another state. And I think that's part of the frustration that our coaches are faced with. And so having something, some kind of federal legislation that allows some opportunity for there to be consistency across competition. And I say this, when you have inter and interstate competition, you want fairness in everybody playing with the same types of rules. And so that's why Washington DC and Congress has been really important and we've made some strides, but I would also say that, you know, it's not probably ready for public consumption. Now, we are thinking about a plan B if we can't get help from Washington DC, because that's, I think the biggest difficulty that our coaches are Facebook, but it's not going away and nor should it go away. So this is the N I at some point is not going to be around anymore. We need to continue to do it. And the final thing I'll say is I want us to continue to make sure literacy is a very important part across our campuses and within the conference that our student athletes are understanding their opportunities, their brand and they may engage or they may not engage, but they have that opportunity. Take our next question in the back with our television folks W STV and part of our two quick ones a year ago in this room, you were answering questions about the future of the league. You just addressed it. You hear the talk about the financials, what steps maybe have been taken in the past year to have a better pathway forward for the conference. And if I could also just have you give a as to how the CW package came together and how quickly that was all done to get where we are with that? Thanks. I, I would say this, uh the league is healthy. It just is and certainly there's rumblings again. We all saw what happened in the spring time, but the group has come together in a way to me that demonstrates they want to work together to find solutions and your question about what solutions have. Has the conference come forward with? Well, we've worked with Fish Bay on our eight point plan generating new additional revenue. The ESPN partnership is really strong and ESPN and the AC C are completely motivated together to generate additional dollars. You see that the conference presidents and chancellors have initiated the success initiative and success incentive initiative, which is going to distribute dollars in a disproportionate way. We've never gone down that road before in the AC C and I'm not sure many conferences have and so revenue generation continues to be a priority. But let me be clear also, this league is third right now in revenue as we go forward into where wherever the next TV deals are for other conferences. We've looked at it. We've had multiple TV. Consultants are third or not. Third is certainly a good position. But we want to gain and, and, and gain traction financially in order to close the gap with obviously the, the SEC and the, and the big 10 who have leapfrogged everyone. I think one of the presidents said it best. Are we chasing a dollar amount or are we chasing success? And I think there's a difference there. If you're chasing a number, it takes you down a different path. If you're chasing success competitively in football and basketball and all of our sports, then I think every institution has an idea of what they need. So again, I, I feel really strongly about this league and, and I think people are missing it when they're not paying attention to the results of how well the conference has done. So it will continue to be a priority and, and uh certainly has the attention of everybody from our board on down and then the CW uh relationship. Listen, we've had a great relationship uh with our TV partners. Um you know, ray com has been a wonderful partner of the, the AC C forever. And they were incredibly helpful along with ESPN and getting the CW. And I think all of you understand distribution and eyeballs and, and being able to be visible in all of the regions that our schools are, but across the country. And that was one of the things when I came almost 2.5 years ago, the frustrations that we had about, I can't find my team, I can't find some of the games. And so they came in and took the place of ball who we appreciate the relationship that we have. And uh uh Ray will produce the games and they'll be distributed on the CW and CW is getting into sports, et cetera. I know, you know, they have live golf and that's getting a lot of attention for different reasons, but we are really excited about that. I think Dennis Miller was going to try to be here from CW, from Los Angeles. I'm not sure he's here. But if he is maybe raise your hand and, and uh if you have any questions later, you got to go over and see him but excited about the CW. We gonna take our next question from our left hand side in the middle. Hey, Commissioner David Hood of tiger net dot com and, and talking about the revenue versus the results and, and trying to find more money and working with the, and how do you keep the schools like Florida State like that have spoken out publicly, uh, committed while trying to bridge what they need at some point, a $40 million gap? And do you think that that gap can be bridged, maybe 40 million, 50 million, 20 million? I think that's the right approach to make it instead of trying to get to a number, try to bridge it as far as you can. And I think how you get it done, you work collaboratively and that's, that's what we've done. And those two institutions have been terrific to work with. I mean, they have great leadership. Rick mccullough is a wonderful guy, Jim Clements is a wonderful guy. They love sports, they love their institutions, but I know they also love the AC C and are trying to figure a way through, but it's all of our schools, right? All of our schools are incentivized to make sure that we have as healthy of a financial portfolio as we possibly can. So, um after the spring, if you wouldn't have, you know, if we wouldn't have had any discussions or we wouldn't have come out with a success and Incentive initiative program, I may have felt differently, but the regularity of which the board is meeting now and the regularity of our A DS meeting, et cetera and how good ESPN has been, they understand the volatility that there is, but they also are looking to grow financially based on some of their, you know, recent events. So you have a lot of mutual, mutually beneficial outcomes in this thing. So staying together working collaboratively working strategically and we have some other things that we're working on. I can't address with this group right now that are pretty exciting to try to address that revenue gap. Take our next question from the back on the aisle and talk about lobbying the N DC regarding ni I know some of the potential options that are out there would include a third party government entity that would oversee this. How comfortable are you with the idea of sort of outsourcing N I oversight to a third party government run organization? Well, we got to look at all of our options if that ends up being the best one and everybody is, you know, in line with that, then, then you have to do it, then you have to do it. It starts to get, you know, you start to get leakage about kind of controlling your organization and the association and making decisions when you go to Washington. So there's always some danger there. Um But we have to do some things differently. And so if it ends up being in that kind of structure, as you described, David, then we're gonna have to do it. We take our next question. No. Come on back up here. We're gonna take our next question. Third row. Uh the AC C um You talk, you talk a lot about uh where you are in terms of looking at growing and expanding and bridging that gap. One of the that's out there that people constantly about the AC C team, one game for the AC C and everything. Is there any priority towards getting everything, doing the full, full as well? Another really good question. We've had a lot of conversations. Let me just put it bluntly with Notre Dame and they've been very clear, they value their independence and I think they feel strongly that that will continue well into the future. If they ever have the desire of joining the conference, they know that there is, we would welcome them with open arms. But I think I can't speak for Jack right now and Pete in the future or Father John, but I think it's been a healthy relationship both ways for the AC C and for Notre Dame, their sports, other than football, I think have thrived in the AC C. I think they really enjoy the academic prowess that the AC C brings as well. Uh But they've been pretty clear about their desire to stay independent So I don't see that changing anytime soon. Next question on the other side of the aisle, midway back, Jim News Observer, curious, you mentioned the the revenue distribution and all those things did kind of having all of that come out at Abbi Island into the open with everybody discussing it change in your mind. The sort of mood in the conference about some of this stuff. Was there a tangible change since May in terms of addressing the future of the AC C? Um that, that you saw? Look, I really believe it helped us. I do. It was painful to go through. Um Nobody liked it but it really started to develop this honesty and candor. Not that it hasn't been an honest group before, but more candor than anything else about. Hey, here are the issues we have or here's what we're concerned about and I think that's healthy. I think that's healthy in or any organization and you can maybe have to have it at the coach level or at the ad level. But when it's at the CEO level with our presidents and chancellors, um I think that that has helped us come together and understand these are some of the things that we have to address. And then, as I mentioned a little bit ago, I think the frequency loop of us now getting together, we, we meet once a week now. Um you know, sometimes more and then, you know, we don't have anything to go over, we can cancel the meeting, but it's on our, on our CEO schedule. And even throughout the summer, we've had to me more meetings than my first two summers with the league by far, I think, double even combined the first two years. So they're attentive, they're aware there's lots of discussion going on. So at the end of the day, I think you turn a tough situation into a positive one. Take our next question from the back on our right hand side in the aisle. Hey, hey, Jen Matt Baker with the Tampa Bay Times over here. Hey, how are you? Um, you were talking about the patchwork of nil state laws. What in your mind is kind of a practical impact that consider there hasn't been much enforcement in anything so far. I think that's the disappointing part of it, Matt and, and I think our league had the most visible one and, and I, I just, I, I still kind of shrug my shoulder on that. I, I don't quite understand that of everything that's going on. Um, at the end of the day, I think we have paralyzed the enforcement staff, not intentionally but with state and IL laws and they're not sure exactly the enforcement abilities that they have et cetera. That's why some kind of consistent language across the country would allow their enforcement staff to me, to be a lot more successful in doing the work that they need to do. So, I think that's part of the earlier question of, you know, the frustrations of the coaches et cetera that they have and our athletic directors and even chancellors and it causes some disruption in your own league with our 10 states because they all look different. The laws do. So, I'm hopeful we can get there. I really do. I, I think we made a ton of progress over the last two or three months and a lot of us have almost lived in Washington DC because of the frequency of meetings with both sides of the aisle. So I am cautiously optimistic that we can get something done. Next question, we were to stay in the back on the right hand side. The I understand the belief that there are students, not employees, but are there contingencies that you've discussed with the presidents or other commissioners in the likely event that the courts decide differently in the next couple of years? You have to be ready for anything, Joe, you know, that this is a, this is a fluid changing landscape and what a student athlete and their experiences and you know, being able to uh get support and monetize their name, image and likeness, what that looked like 10 years ago versus today. Uh We, we have to be ready for almost anything. Courts have been active all the way up to the Supreme Court. So it would be naive for us to think that, hey, we can just kind of do this thing ourselves without much interference. So we'll have to continue to look at it. I know that that is not the desire of the AC C Presidents at all. Um, but, you know, at some point could be a reality next question down here right in the front on the second row, commissioner with the cos play up expanding. Um, you mentioned the non conference schedule, for example, Florida State, they have upcoming home and home games with Alabama and Georgia, two of the top programs in the country right now with the playoff expanding. Do you anticipate more of these home and home in the future? How can that help lift the profile of the AC C as a whole? I, I think they go together, they, they, and with the expanded playoff, I think you're going to see more of those kinds of games because you can, you can suffer a loss and maybe even two and still get into a 12 team playoff. So, you know, the, the, the unique thing about scheduling is it's done individually. So the conference office doesn't have a lot of, um, influence on it. You know, we can, we've tried to set up some games like we did in Ireland, which will be great. It's a conference game. But, uh I commend our schools that are playing difficult nonconference games and what I'd like to see in the selection moving forward is there being, you know, more emphasis on the games that you are playing? Right? And what's the totality, what's the resume? Look across a 12 game schedule, not just what you've done in your own conference, but who have you played in the nonconference schedule? So, look forward to those games and many more that you've described, we're going to take our final question right over here on the aisle. Times. Dispatch. How close are you and your fellow commissioners to in the road from the playoff? And what impact will that have to finalize your success? Yeah, those also kind of go hand in hand, David. Um, no, we don't know all the financials just yet of some of the postseason. So that's going to work into it. But I know that the group is eager to get this finished. This is not another year away or anything like that. We're going to input it next year. I think they really are interested in short order, getting something done and structured in a way. So everybody kind of knows what those financials potentially look like, not knowing all the numbers. So I would say a more near term than longer term.