Hey, good morning and welcome to day two of this year's AC C tip off before I get started. I, I wanted to say something about the passing of Tasha Butts and some of you may know Tasha, some of you may not. Um Tasha Butts most recently was an assistant and an associate head coach at Georgia Tech. Um, was a great player at Tennessee. I had a chance, my first assistant in ad job had a chance to meet Tasha. She was a student athlete, there had a great playing career at Tennessee, played professionally and then became an assistant coach and her dream was to be a head coach. She got that dream last March. Um when Georgetown hired her and she passed away on Monday after a long battle with breast cancer. And, um, you know, I, I had not seen Tasha in nearly two decades after I saw her on the campus at Tennessee. Um, and she was just so full of life and just such a special woman and a special person and, oh, too young. Um, and II, I had a chance to talk with the women's coaches yesterday and said the same thing. And so I appreciate you letting me start today. But I think it's a reminder of the frailties of life and um but just how powerful people are. And um and I know Tasha leave is an unbelievable legacy. So our thoughts and prayers are with the entire butts family. So thank you, thank you for allowing me to say those words. Listen. Uh Yesterday was a terrific first day of AC C tip off, showcasing our 15 amazing women's basketball teams during the summer. I think a lot of, you know, Jackie Carson joined our team as a senior associate commissioner for women's basketball. And she's done a tremendous job in her first three months. We also hired Barbara Davis from the Big East as our director of women's basketball. And we know their additions will be extremely beneficial to the AC C and its membership. Yesterday, we also welcomed Tory Verde who was named Pitt women's basketball coach last spring. And the day was a chance to celebrate what makes AC C basketball so special. Our student athletes, coaches and programs. We're extremely proud to head into the season with the nation's best seven teams ranked in the USA. Today, coaches poll. The collective strength of AC C women's basketball has been well established. Consider our postseason success. First. We led all conferences in 2023 with eight NCAA tournament teams. Last year marked the fifth consecutive NC A tournament in which eight teams were selected also the most of any conference in that span AC C teams have made five trips to the final four in the last 58 NC A tournaments. And with Virginia Tech representing us last year, nine different institutions have represented the AC C in the women's final four. The AC C is the only conference to have at least three teams in the sweet 16 in each of the last nine NC A tournaments. And finally, the AC C also owns the most NCAA tournament wins 100 and 19 of any conference in the last decade of competition. Pretty remarkable after spending a full day with our student athletes coaches yesterday, I assure you there's incredible excitement and it's going to be a season for all of us to remember today, we turn our focus to AC C men's basketball and we know there's never a shortage of anticipation for our teams and our conference. This year, we welcome three new coaches to the AC C sidelines, Georgia Tech Damon Stoudemire, Notre Dame's Micah Shrewsbury and Syracuse's Adrian Autry. Our men's basketball teams continue to excel. Consider the AC C has captured three of the last eight NC A championships with 9 99 NC A tournament wins in that span. Current AC C schools have won eight NC A titles in the last 22 tournaments and own 17 national championships overall. Our schools have combined for 67 men's final four appearances and the nation's best 664 NC A tournament wins. And the league owns the highest all time NCAA tournament winning percentage of any league. 618 all 15 AC C league members own a staggering 1000 or more all time wins including eight schools with 1500 victories or more. Finally, four of the top eight and six of the top 30 winnings programs in the NCAA division one basketball history reside right here in our conference. The AC C, we understand the bar has always set high for A, for the AC C including in men's basketball. And I'm incredibly confident our teams will once again rise to that occasion. A lot has happened since we were together this summer at AC C kickoff. It's always terrific to see so many of you during uh my travels to our campuses and to our other events. The AC C and its membership continue to be national leaders academically. The AC C once again leads all F BS conferences in this year's US, news and world report rankings athletically, no power five conference offers more than 28 sponsored sports and our 15 women's offerings lead all our programs have won more NC A national championships than any other conference in each of the last two years. Currently, six programs this fall are ranked either number one or number two in their respective sports. The most of all conferences, the AC C has won seven national championships in football, men's basketball, women's basketball and baseball since 2015 and is the only conference to win each of those four titles over that stretch. The AC C and its membership have so much to be proud of. And the last two months have been monumental. Our new conference office headquarters are just a few blocks away and although we knew being a part of the Charlo community would be incredible. It has exceeded our expectations. I invite you to come and see our operation at Bank of America Tower on the 12th floor, see our state of the art facilities as a league, we launched the AC C's new brand campaign, accomplish greatness, Amy A cola did an amazing job and you're starting to see that pop up on our network and you'll see that throughout the year. It's been embraced by our schools. And in the next week, we will roll out our television spots and initiatives surrounding AC C basketball. And as all of, you know, on September 1st, we welcome three world class institutions and athletic programs to the AC C family cal SMU and Stanford joining us next summer, the decis decision by the AC C Board of directors strengthens the AC C both now and in the future and it benefits each of our current institutions throughout the entire process of exploring potential expansion. The priorities were to enrich and strengthen the AC C athletically academically and financially while also enhancing the overall league stability and the board's ultimate decision achieves all of those priorities. So there's much more I could say with you this morning. But let me just tell you again, I appreciate all of you being here, I'll stop at this point and be happy to take any of your questions that time. We've got a couple of mic holders if you could really help us. Let me make sure I see your hand. Um We'll go ahead and take as many as we can. I do want to be transparent. Uh, that commissioner is chairing a college football playoff meeting at 9 a.m. but he will be around the rest of the day. So, uh we'll get started. Let's uh we by Mike holders. Let's take our first one over here. Second row on the aisle. So what Amy's telling you is I'm not ducking anybody. Ok, I'll be back. Take our first one right here. Second row. Good morning, Jim Dave Thiel with the Richmond Times dispatch. You used the word monumental to describe the last few months to say the least. It was a spirited discussion when it came to new membership during the summer. You just had your fall meetings. Where would you assess the membership right now? Just in terms of everyone being content and aligned. I've never been more confident in the league than what we just went through over the last three or four months. So le let me articulate it a little bit further. First, we talked about having uh a, a different distribution of revenue success initiatives that we made a public statement about in the spring in May. After the board meeting, we have moved quickly on that and we'll distribute dollars differently for the first time. So we listened to the membership on that. Secondly, we have this amazing brand campaign that Amy led, accomplished greatness, which I think we've needed to do to modernize and forward face our AC C brand. We've had the expansion piece that, that you've talked about and we moved to Charlotte. Listen, the, the expansion piece as I uh indicated academically, there's no one that can tell me or anyone else that those aren't three really good schools that fit the AC C athletically, two of them have, have led the Sears Director Cup, one has dominated it. The other has been certainly involved in it funnel more. I think student ale those two schools than any other two in the country. Um and also have had good history in, in a variety of other sports. They bring two new markets to us, San Francisco, the Bay area and Dallas Fort Worth. We are a national conference. We've been a regional conference two years ago. Would we have done this? Probably not David? But times have changed and you either get on the offensive or you don't. And so where is the health of the league? The league is healthy? The league is healthy. At the end of the day, my job is to run the AC C and make sure it's healthy for the next 70 years. It has been the last 70 years. I, I cannot control individual feelings on campuses, but we have addressed head on anything that our campuses have indicated. So I feel great. I really do. I've never been more bullish and I didn't, I can't say that I felt that way a year ago. Um So that's where we're at. The meetings were fantastic. We had our three new schools there with us. So we have had a chance to start some dialogue there. We've got a lot of work left with scheduling and some other things. Um But the future is really bright at this conference. This conference has been undervalued. Uh And I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue on that. When you talk about CFP appearances, you talk about national championships in, in college football, you talk about the basketball success. I just mentioned, you talk about a conference that's won more national championships than any other conference. You talk about a conference that has a network, there's only three and they'll always only be three, there'll never be any more collegiate net uh networks. You talk about the success we're having in the classroom. Um I could go on and on. We distribute money a third that continues to grow. So, um the narrative has run away about, you have to make a certain amount of money to have success, you have to go chase a dollar. I think it's about, are we chasing again? Dollars? Are we chasing success? And that's what we're doing? We're chasing success with real student athletes that are graduating at the, at the highest level from um enormously difficult institutions. When this is all said and done, we'll have eight of the very best private institutions, 10 of the very best public institutions will be in great markets. Um So that's where I think the league is and that's kind of what we talked about during the meetings and it's not Pollyannish, it just isn't go down here, Jim Woo Cockrell news observer. I kinda wanna follow up on David's question. You had three schools very vocally voted against expansion. Uh There are rumors and, and text sent to your A DS talking about potentially one school using private equity to go independent. Um You impact schools that this was not a unanimous vote. What can you do now to keep any schools that were against expansion in the fold or one of the stated things that your A DS and president said after expansion was we have to get to 18 because if we lose schools, we need to stay above 15. That was a logic that was given to us to what degree are you guys preparing for a future without some of your current members? Uh uh Good morning, by the way, Luke, it's good to see you. Um, I cannot control individual decisions on campus and we can't. And so we have absolutely listened. I've tried to be a really good listener and so it hasn't fallen on deaf ears. We've been proactive, the distribution of dollars with success initiative is part of what I'm hearing and maybe a majority of what I'm hearing from some of the schools that have been vocal about it. Getting to 18 protects the AC C now and into the future schools will ultimately make the decisions that they want. But what I keep hearing from them is they like being in the AC C and we are making progress and we have addressed some of the things that they've talked about. So I I would really encourage all of you to, to go back to whatever schools that you want to, to discuss that. Um As far as not a unanimous vote in 2004 and 2005, the AC C made offers to Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College that was not unanimous Carolina and Duke from what I uh remember um voted against it. So people made a big deal. I know about NC State and North Carolina separating in their vote. There's history there. And at the end of the day, we had a high threshold. You're talking about 80% of the league voted in favor of that. I'm not sure in this world you can get 80% of vote on anything on any issue. And so we move forward, we move forward together. I don't feel any hangover by any of the schools that may not have been in favor of, of the expansion piece of it. Zero. All right, we're gonna go right over here to the very front. Give us a second. Looks like we're down a mic. Hey, Commissioner Phillips, uh, Royal, how Carolina Blitz, uh, commissioner, you mentioned the conference being undervalued and last year, I know a lot doing conference calls. Coaches felt like there wasn't enough exposure for AC C basketball. Uh, since 1997 out of 27 NCAA tournaments, the AC C has had a team, 20 teams at least make the final four. What can the coaches do to bring more exposure to the AC C? Is it more just coaches talking about the conference as a whole? What can you see from coaches to bring more exposure to AC C? It's good to see you this morning. We spent a lot of time right in, in the off season talking about men's basketball and women's basketball. Uh how we were scheduling. We, we brought Kevin Paw in who's really good, um, works at Michigan State but, but he's kind of the guru of scheduling and the net and the metrics involved in selection, et cetera. We've had to schedule better in the nonconference, not dissimilar to football. We have to perform better in the nonconference from a uh from a conference standpoint, we've really pushed hard with this branding campaign with the network, additional shows additional features trying to promote the game and the AC C at a higher level. So that was all through the off season. So I feel like we've got a lot of momentum behind men's and women's basketball. There's been serious investment at the conference level, but also at the institutional level, we want to keep those statistics, as you mentioned going, the history of the AC C. Some could argue, I think it's the best basketball conference in the country, maybe the last few years, we haven't performed or won a national championship. Um like we had, we, you know, we, we always go into the season hoping for. Um but when you look at the whole body work, this is a phenomenal basketball conference and uh we're trying to double down on some of our past success. Go back over here and stand on this side on the uh right one room front. You, all right. It's fine morning, Jim Mike Barber Richmond dispatch. Uh kind of what David was asking in terms of the reaction of the league. I'm curious, this is such a proud basketball league and obviously, the expansion decisions are, are largely driven by football economics. What has been the reaction and the feedback from the basketball coaches and what has been your message to them on that front? It's been really good. Um I've heard from a majority of the coaches, uh, on the men's side, I've heard from all, you know, basically all the women coaches who, who I was with yesterday, they understand it, um, and they get it and they're excited about it because where we are today in the world of, of college sports, a move like that, uh, you can't pass up with the environment, a chance for our schools to get into the Bay Area. Our current 15 and then get into the Dallas Fort Worth. They, they recruit nationally and now we have a chance to go out there to travel is something we spent time on. And, and I think that's the biggest question the coaches have. I've not heard one coach at least tell me that they, you know, they were against it or don't like it, et cetera. Maybe they don't want to tell, maybe they wanna tell me that. But, um, the travel is the piece that we're, we, we spend an ornament amount of time on with some working groups for the current AC C schools. It'll be one trip basically every two years, every other year. And when you go out to the west coast, you'll play cal maybe on a Thursday and Stanford on a Sunday or whatever days. Right. So there'll be a, um, a, a for the first time kind of travel partner. So Florida State and Miami will go out to the Bay Area and one will play cal one will play Stanford and they'll, they'll switch, uh Duke and Carolina, right. Virginia, Virginia Tech. And then coming back the other way, it'll be between four and five trips. So we thought about with, with uh Paul Brazo and Jackie Carson. You know, do we have to play some conference games a little bit earlier in the year? Should we play some, you know, before the holidays, et cetera and try to limit some of that travel? So they're excited about it. They feel as I just described, this is a chance for them to, to bring their programs and their brands out to different markets that are, you know, national cities and um, and have a media presence again, top 10 uh market. The, the, the, the follow up to that would be we're working hard on distribution out there of the network, which is going to be a really key piece of this thing as well. So I've gotten positive reaction from our coaches second row. Joe. Hi Joe from uh from Raleigh. You used proactive getting on the offensive, but the expansion moves have largely been viewed as reactive. Why not truly go the national conference, as you mentioned when the signs were there last summer or even the summer before that ac C history was being proactive with expansion. So what prevented you and the presidents from truly being on the offensive last summer before? Yeah, I, I think, um, Joe, when we looked at it two summers ago when the first move with Texas and Oklahoma, you kind of study it, et cetera. We felt really good. I, I think um I think some of the uh some of the um vibes and some of the, you know, conversations we had with indi individual institutions, Joe, that became apparent that we needed to try to do something financially as well as protect the fortress. So we felt we were very proactive. We had many, many calls, hundreds of hours of time with the board as it relates to taking a look at. Would this make sense with this group of schools ma make sense with this particular school, make sense? And when we got into the spring and into the summer, I think it kind of all came together. Stay on this side on the aisle. Yeah, good morning, Jim Mitch, north of North Carolina Public Radio. Um, the AC C women's basketball tournaments going back to Greensboro for, I think the 23rd time in 24 years. Um Is this the long term home for the tournament or is the conference and sure exploring other venues, maybe a rotating model like the men's Mitch? Really good question. We, we are talking with our coaches and looking at scheduling in totality. Greensboro has been a wonderful home for the women's tournament and for the men's tournament, we will, we will certainly continue to populate Greensboro with our championship, but we're in a new home as well in Charlotte. And we want to take advantage of this rural class city. Uh, so I think what you're gonna see this fall is you'll see a, an announcement that will take us maybe over the next three or four years with our basketball tournaments as well as our Olympic sports here in the state of North Carolina. There were some commitments that we made to the state, uh, in order to, to stay here and receive some funding. Uh, so we'll, we'll honor those commitments, contractually, et cetera. But this is a really nice place for us, Charlotte with some games in Greensboro. But then we've also been up the coast. Um, and we look forward to being in Washington DC on the men's side, come March and on the women's side back to Greensboro. So again, II, I love the choices we have as we look at future championships, not only in, in the basketballs, but also in our Olympic sports. Far left side on the aisle. Commissioner Brian Murphy. Uh, good morning. I, I wonder how much the leak had contact with ESPN, given what they're going through before the decision to expand and if you could shed some light on, on the pro rata agreement and, and how that, how the financials are going to work with the three. Yeah, thanks, Brad. We had constant conversations, you know, through the membership. Um, I had a chance to, to talk to ESPN, they are, they were completely listeners in it. And uh but they're our partner, they're our network partner and our, you know, very important partner. I sh you know, would underscore uh as it relates to the financial piece of it. We're still working on, on some of that. But a has been stated, we're gonna use some, some dollars for this success initiative pool. We're gonna use some of the new CFP dollars for the Success Initiative pool. So we're still working through a few of those things, but it has benefit for our entire membership for certain down here in the front. Dan Tortora, wake up, call DT dot com. When you look at this realignment and everything that's gone on over these last few years, we had the balloon conferences in the past and they got too big and they broke away. Did you see that this was going to happen again? The mega conference getting to 18, some maybe looking at 20. Did you kind of envision that it was going to go this way? And how do we make sure it's successful this time as opposed to what happened before Dan, I, I would say, I, I think all the signs pointed to that when Michigan and, or, you know, in Texas and Oklahoma left to go to the SEC and you had multiple conferences, grant of rights and media contracts come open that historically has been the time where schools have moved and even though Texas and Oklahoma made that announcement two summers ago, they've stayed in the big 12 until their grant of rights has come to a conclusion, which will, which will be this summer. Um We feel good about the 18, we'll be at 18, the big 10 will be at 18, the SEC and the uh sec and the uh big 12 will be at 16. And so that's where super conferences are right now or mega conferences or power five, power four, whatever you want to describe. So we are right where we should be and uh and I think we'll learn, we'll learn some things from, from history and it won't be perfect, travel won't be perfect. Scheduling won't be perfect. Uh But being proactive and making sure that we have set this AC C up for now and, and now and into the future, uh the ability to have success. II, I don't think there's any question about that. Got two left. We're gonna take our first one over here on the left. Hey, Jim Josh Graham wsjs. Kind of on the note of the conference tournament. How many models are being considered for the format of that tournament once the three schools join and related to scheduling of football? What, how many, how would you characterize the challenges presented with adding the three schools for the timeliness of the football schedule having to be released for next year? Josh, we uh we're gonna, we'll unveil the football schedule first cause that's, uh, most pressing fall sports, not only football but our soccer and, and field hockey, et cetera. So we want to get those across the finish line. We're nearing that. Uh, we've worked closely with, with ESPN, our partner and closely with our three new schools and our campuses. We've had too many iterations to, to name the number of, but I feel really good about that while also protecting some very important rivalry games and some rivalry games that we have with other conferences. So it's been, uh, it's been the ultimate jigsaw puzzle, but, uh, feel very, very good about that. Um, as it relates to, you know, our, our other, uh, championships and, you know, where will they be in the future? II, I think that remains to be determined, that remains to be determined. And, uh, as it relates to the scheduling part, like for, for basketball, it varies a little bit. Josh, because we have, we're playing 18 games on the women's side, 20 games on the men's side. So that all kind of factors into. Ultimately, II, I don't know that we would invite 18 teams to, uh to an AC C men's or women's basketball championship. I'm not sure we're gonna do the conference office. We'll do what the membership wants. Uh I, I don't, I don't feel like that's something that we should do. I, I, I've told them that. So I'm not speaking out of turn, I think you got to earn your way to play. And I think the most prestigious postseason basketball tournaments in the country and if you don't get to a certain threshold, excuse me, if you don't get to a certain threshold, then you just don't make it that year. So we'll, we'll see. It's also, you know, Tuesday through Saturday or Wednesday through Sunday. That's been a nice flow. It's been a nice flow, I think for the media, it's been a nice flow for our teams, for fans, for our staff. Um I'm not overly interested in adding one additional day, but we'll listen to the membership and see what they have to say. Last question, Joe Gilio Obvious and Giulio, hey, Jim, hey Joe at the risk of being crazy blunt. Uh Is it a bug or a feature that the three schools you're adding are not very good at football and two of them in California aren't very interested in supporting football. So what is the first part of that? Is it a, is it a bug or a feature? Yeah. II I would just say this. Uh they, they, those two schools have had success in football in the past David Shaw did an amazing job. So they're going through a transition there. Uh CAL has had good football as well and SMU is really good. They, they may be at the, the G five level but you'll see them, I think immediately um perform well, in our league. So again, you can look at a moment in time, Joe, I appreciate it very much and I understand that. Uh, but in totality, I feel really good about what they can do in the AC C and so do our, so does the membership commissioner? Thank you. Thanks to each of you. We're going to flip this room, get ready for our coaches and student athletes. And again, we're around the rest of the day. Let us know how we can help you.