Commissioner's Forum: What we heard
Opening statement
JOHN SWOFFORD: It's that time of year again. Welcome to the 2018 ACC football kickoff. It's great to be with you, as it always is at this time of year. I want to begin today by really thanking each of you for being here, being in attendance, and thank you for your countless efforts throughout the year in covering our players, coaches, schools, and our conference.
As I was preparing for today, I couldn't help but think back to the early years of being a part of this. And I think the first one of these I went to, we had eight members in the league. The media attendance was about 100. Now we have about 500 of you that attend this event. We have 14 schools. We have two divisions. We have a Conference Championship game and a national playoff.
At that point in time, most of your stories were next-day events. Now they're immediate. So there's been an incredible amount of change during the time that I've been fortunate enough to be a part of this great league and to attend these kinds of events with you.
They're changing times, and one of the things that I'm most proud of in this conference is that our conference and our schools have adjusted well to that changing landscape, which is why I think we are where we are as a conference today.
It's an exciting time for the ACC with a lot to celebrate and a lot to appreciate. Our schools continue to perform at the highest level both academically and athletically, which is a tribute to the quality leadership at each of our institutions. Throughout our history, our schools have collectively distinguished themselves in many positive ways.
I've been fortunate to be a part of this league for over four decades, and throughout my tenure, I've realized, quite frankly, how important it is to celebrate success and not take any moments for granted, because I think we all know and understand how difficult it is to be the best, how difficult it is to win championships, and that life can throw a lot of wrenches into programs and their attempts to be the best on the field or on the court.
The competitive aspect of college athletics helps drive the desire to set the bar higher. Our players, coaches and programs embody a high standard of excellence. And when you look at what's been accomplished in recent years in this league, I think it would be short-sighted not to acknowledge and celebrate the following: The ACC is the only conference to win National Championships in football, men's basketball, women's basketball and baseball over the last four years. I think any conference anywhere, including this one, would take that over every four-year period. The conference has won four combined football and men's basketball titles over the last five years. That's twice as many as any other league.
During this past academic year, the ACC led all conferences with ten bowl teams, nine NCAA men's basketball tournament teams, and eight NCAA women's basketball tournament teams, including two Final Four participants and the national champion in the most dynamic women's Final Four in its history.
Over the past two years, ACC teams have made 21 bowl appearances, which leads the nation, and our champion has been in the College Football Playoff every year of its existence.
So we're proud of these successes as well as so many more that I haven't mentioned, and I truly believe the strength of our schools, our student-athletes, our coaches and our fans is at an unprecedented point in our league's history.
ACC Network in 2019
Two years ago at this event, we announced a new multimedia agreement with ESPN that included the launch of the ACC Network. Today we are approaching the one-year countdown to the linear launch of that network. A lot of work has been done in preparation for next August by our partners at ESPN, by those in our offices in Greensboro, and at our schools.
Just yesterday here in Charlotte, we completed a two-day ACC/ESPN production summit that brought together our school production directors and ESPN's production leadership to begin the planning process for 2019. As you can imagine, with over 1,400 events on the schedule between the Network and Network Extra, there's a lot of planning and a lot of coordinating required over the next year.
There are a few big items that we know are of major interest and, rest assured, we are tracking on those. This fall we will finalize the live event programming schedule for the fall, winter and spring sports. Throughout the academic year, we'll begin the process of considering our non-live program needs and reviewing different show ideas that will be on the ACC Network. And by next spring, we will have identified the talent for the programs that we create, as well as our lead game announcers for all sports.
Those are the answers I have surrounding the topics of programming and talent. It's not that I don't want to share more with you, but the reality is I've provided all the answers we have at this current time. But, rest assured, by next year's football kickoff, there will be no shortage of information surrounding the ACC Network shows and talent, and we will at that time be within weeks of its launch.
Bottom line, whether it's production, distribution, scheduling or anything else related to the network, I am pleased to be able to tell you that we are right on schedule.
There's one additional and significant milestone I can share with you today, which is the unveiling of the final ACC Network brand mark. The ACC Network brand that was displayed when we announced the agreement was created as a placeholder, if you will, until we were ready to unveil the actual brand mark today. Chris McClure, ESPN's senior creative director, in conjunction with several of his colleagues on ESPN's creative works team, designed this mark after months of concept testing. There's an art to creating a brand mark that will be associated with so many multimedia platforms. This includes not only linear and digital broadcasts, but also apps for phones, tablets, ESPN's bottom line, digital banners, alerts, and on and on.
Our partners at ESPN have tremendous vision. We've known that for a long time. And the ACC Network brand mark is no exception. Thanks again to ESPN, Chris and his team for what we think was an excellent job.
All in all, significant strides have been made on all network fronts, and we are extremely pleased with the progress that continues to be made and look forward to the August launch with great anticipation.
At the same time we are approaching the ACC Network launch, as there always is, there's great excitement surrounding the upcoming academic year. There have been a number of changes related to football within the NCAA, and I'm pleased that a number of these changes have come about as a result of the leadership at our schools and our conference.
The early signing period in December, redshirt and transfer rules
This past December was the first early signing day, something we've championed from the ACC for a number of years, and after visiting with our coaches this spring and as recently as this morning, it's been a positive addition to the recruiting calendar. There's also been significant discussions surrounding the redshirt and transfer rules. We'll need to evaluate both of these over the next year and beyond, but I don't think there's any doubt that the benefit for our players far outweigh any negatives that might come with it.
As it relates to the transfer process, we believe the changes are in the best interest of players and specifically their ability to control who they talk with during the process and their ability to ultimately transfer where they want and need to go. It also eliminates any restriction on them from receiving athletic aid at a new school.
The football redshirt rule, which allows a player to participate in up to four games without losing a year of eligibility is another positive for our players and programs. The opportunity to have limited game experience without penalty, especially when you consider the length of the season and possible attrition during the season, should be an overall benefit of the game, the players and the coaches.
As a former player who sat out a year with an illness and spent that year not playing the game, that's a tough thing to do. And for a player to have the opportunity to play in three or four games gives the coaches the opportunity to certainly evaluate them better, prepare them better for when they're playing on a more regular basis, and it gives players the opportunity to hang in there, so to speak, as they get through what would have been a redshirt year of not playing at all. So I think it's a tremendous change for the players.
The early signing period as well as the new redshirt rule were both initiated by the ACC. We're fortunate to have Blake James, Miami's athletics director, as chair of the Division I Council. His leadership and ability to effectively communicate on behalf of the various constituents continues to be appreciated. And currently I think it's worth noting that the ACC has more individuals on more committees in the NCAA than any other conference, so we're extraordinarily represented across the board and in some very key leadership positions.
The health and safety initiatives surrounding our student-athletes remains a significant focus for our schools, our conference, and of course nationally. This is a rule change year in football, and later today, Dennis Hennigan, who is doing such an outstanding job with our officiating in the ACC, will outline a number of modifications that will be implemented this season. I hope you will attend that session.
This will include the much-talked-about kickoff rule, which after spending time with our coaches, I know there's a desire to see even more future changes to help protect players, which is going to be increasingly important for the importance of the game and the continuation of the game of football as we know it as we move forward.
New coaches
Speaking of coaches, as you know, we welcomed Florida State's Willie Taggart to the league this past December. He has already been a great addition around our table and is joining a group of coaches that has separated itself with the national landscape. We have seven of the nation's top 25 active coaches in career victories. That's more coaches in that top 25 than any other conference.
ACC Championships in Charlotte
It's a good time to talk with coaches. They're all here. They're all undefeated. And they're all here with the ultimate goal of returning to Charlotte on the first weekend in December for the 14th annual Dr. Pepper ACC Football Championship Game. It's nice to say 14th because we've come a long way with this game, and we've found a home, obviously.
This past April we announced an agreement with the Charlotte Sports Foundation and the Carolina Panthers to keep one of our marquee events here in Charlotte through 2030. It's also good to see that David Tepper, the new owner of the Panthers, is a Pitt graduate, and therefore we have declared him an ACC guy.
Speaking of marquee events, I'd be remiss in not mentioning while we're here in Charlotte what a significant role this city will play beyond our annual kickoff and football championship game. We'll be back here in October for both our men's and women's basketball Media Days, and in March we'll celebrate the 66th annual New York Life ACC men's basketball tournament at the Spectrum Center just a few blocks from here.
Growth of the ACC with the conference now competing in the College Football Playoff
Well, I think that -- I don't think it's explainable in one or two aspects of it. I think it's multiple, and I think it really started in the early 2000s when we began talking about expansion and the need for expansion, should we, should we not; if so, why.
And we felt like looking ahead, sometimes you have to try and be visionary, you know, as a business, as a conference, as an individual, and most of us felt very strongly that with the way things were progressing, where college athletics was going, how the football side of things was beginning to dominate, if you will, the business aspects of it and the revenue generation aspects of it because of its growing popularity, we felt like we had to do two things as a league. One was to grow and enhance our footprint and our marketplaces and our television sets, and the other was that we had to get more competitive top to bottom in football. Those were the two items that we beat to death, quite honestly, meeting after meeting after meeting, and we got there.
But the success on the field doesn't happen, and certainly I think we enhanced ourselves football-wise by the schools that we have brought into the league since the decision first was made in 2003, but then '04 and '05 is when Miami and Virginia Tech came in, and then Boston College right on top of it, which gave us the opportunity to have a conference championship game, which we had to have 12 schools in order to do that.
Then later the opportunity to bring Pitt and Syracuse into the league, who have not had as much recent success in football but have tremendous tradition and history in that sport, which can help tremendously in rebuilding it and putting it back together and having that same success going forward possibly.
It also affected our ability to do some things television-wise and marketing-wise that we would never have been able to do as a nine-member conference, for instance.
Then Notre Dame and the arrangement with Notre Dame, which I think has been a tremendous plus for the league as well as for Notre Dame. Then the loss of one school and the immediate decision to bring in Louisville, to bring us to where we are today from a membership and market standpoint. Plus all of those schools have excellent football potential. And when you couple it with the nine schools that we already had, it just has given us so much more depth, and instead of one or two really good teams, we have a lot more than that right now. And I think that will continue.
But the biggest thing is the institutions responding to the challenge to improve football, to bring our football nationally up to a level similar to basketball. I think we're in the best shape we've ever been as a league at this point in time in a real balance there with football and basketball, because basketball is so important to the history of our league and what we became, how we were perceived. And our football, while we had some, over time, great players and great teams along the way that won some National Championships and some Heisman trophies and those kinds of things, we weren't doing it with nearly the frequency or with multiple teams the way we had been able to do things in basketball.
And as I said, the business model was changing. About the early 2000s was when the football revenue from television equaled basketball television revenue in this conference and now a number of conferences before then, that had already taken place.
But the biggest thing is the schools responding, investing in the sport, investing in facilities, investing in hiring quality coaches and investing in recruiting.
Thoughts on whether or not the ACC gets a fair shake in the CFP Rankings
JOHN SWOFFORD: I think so. You know, I've said this before: I think the CFP has been the greatest startup I've ever seen in college sports, I think. It doesn't mean it's perfect, but one of the reasons I can say that is we've been in it the first four years, so I get that. But at the same time, I do think it's been to our benefit, and I think some of that is the eyeball test.
I think we finally have put together a period of time where our league has improved consistently in football. It's not a flash-in-the-pan kind of situation, and there will be a year, I'm sure, where our champion or another team is not in the playoff. I mean, it's already happened to some really good conferences. That's part of the deal at this point in time.
But we'd like to put that off as long as we possibly can. But I think the CFP has been really good for the ACC and really good for college football.
Q. Some of your cohorts have said they expect the NCAA to adopt some, if not all, or most if not all of the Rice Commission's recommendations for basketball. What's your sense on that, and do you agree with everything in that report as it's being implemented?
JOHN SWOFFORD: I do think the vast majority of it, if not all of it, will be adopted. And I think it needs to be adopted. That doesn't mean that I agree with every piece of it, but I think what we need to do right now with college basketball is to show a commitment to adopting those concepts. And they'll be more than concepts when they're adopted in August.
But I think we'll need to understand that in taking those concepts in a very short period of time and turning them into legislative protocol, doing it that quickly, I think we can expect that a year from now or two years from now, it may need tweaking some. But I think the bones of it are outstanding, and I think we're at a point in college basketball where we need to take those steps.
I don't think it'll be perfect in August, so I think we're going to need a mechanism to adjust to some degree going forward, but I think it's important to take that first step, and I think it needs to be a giant first step.
Addressing issues with attendance
JOHN SWOFFORD: Mainly talking about best practices among ourselves. That's one of the great things about a conference is schools can spend time together and share ideas and what works and what doesn't work, because we're in a period now where people's ability to watch a game is phenomenal, you know, whether it's your phone or your living room, and it's a quality experience, particularly in your living room. Some more than others, but you can still do other things, keep up with the game, see the highlights, and all of that is good. So maybe sometimes to gain something, you give up a little something.
But I think the biggest approach is -- and every school is a little different. School A may have a parking problem, school B not at all, but I think what our schools are finding is sharing that kind of information about the in-stadium experience and also modernizing stadiums and bringing them up to snuff, so to speak, so that the in-game experience is as good as it can be, and that can start on the field with the product, and it can also start on the field with keeping the game going. We're continually working at reducing the length of games. I really harp on this all the time with our officials particularly, so I'm pleased to tell you that the ACC in terms of conference games, we had the shortest length of conference games of any of our peer conferences last year and I think the year before, as well, if I'm not mistaken. And that's a good thing.
We keep looking at rules changes that also may shorten the game because Major League Baseball is dealing with this right now, with attendance down and people complaining about the length of games and rules changes they're trying to make without taking away the soul of the game itself.
But I think it's a trend we have to keep an eye on. You want to be developing young fans. You want to be developing students into fans while they're there because generally they're the ones who go on, and as they have some successes in life, give back to our booster clubs and our universities. So it's an all-encompassing issue that is about the field, it's about fans' total experience from parking to concessions to bathrooms to comfort in their seats to reception they can get on their mobiles while they're in the stadium. You know, all of those things come into play, and I'm sure I've missed a few.
But it is a concern that we talk about often in our league meetings.
Q. The Supreme Court decision on sports gambling, where do you think the ACC overall and college football really should go in terms of injury reports?
JOHN SWOFFORD: Well, I just had a lengthy conversation with our Coastal Division coaches this morning about that issue. You may remember, we have had not a rule but a gentlemen's agreement among our coaches to share publicly injury information. We were the only conference that was doing that, and ironically, we decided not to do it this year, so we won't be doing it this year.
But my guess is that -- I think the ultimate question with us is how do you protect the players and the integrity of the game, and what's different now that some things are legal from when it was illegal, and what does that change. But the ultimate question is how do we protect our players, because obviously a lot more people -- if it's going to be legal, and we're in ten states, we have schools in ten states, so it's going to be challenging because some states will pass it and others won't, I feel sure.
So we'll have to see how it plays out, but my guess is we will have a national -- I won't even call it an injury report because I think that we need to include other situations that would be in sync, be consistent across the country. I think that's critically important, and would include not only injuries but if there's disciplinary action where a player is suspended for a game or for whatever reason, that would need to be a part of it, as well. And I think that reduces to some degree people you don't really want coming around players and managers and doctors and anybody associated with the program, coaches, trying to get information in another kind of way, in an underhanded kind of way.
My general feeling, and I sense that our coaches' general feeling is the same, that that's probably something that needs to happen on a national basis. I don't think it'll happen for this season. I suspect it'll be for next season, but I'll be surprised if that's not in place.
What impact Swofford can have on the ACC and what concerns him the most moving forward
JOHN SWOFFORD: You know, what I'm concerned about most, I think, and I don't know how much it's going to change. I may be one of the most naive people in the world about gambling, quite honestly. I can't even tell you the lingo that goes with it, quite frankly. But I know it can be incredibly problematic for the integrity of our games. I don't like the optics of gambling in college sports, but at the same time, I mean, it's obviously going on illegally and has been for years, and there are people who are constantly trying to get information about programs and individual players, et cetera, so they can bet the most effective way they think they can.
I don't know what legalizing it -- I don't know how much it changes everything, and I'm not sure anybody does. We've talked about this at our commissioners' meetings a couple of weeks ago, and it's kind of a, well, what if and what if, and is this going to change or not. I think we're going to have to see how it plays out some.
I mean, there's even an argument about -- you see people talking about let's get a one percent integrity fee, so to speak, to try and manage this and do what we need to do on our campuses with our athletes. And then you have others say, wait a minute, we're going to ask to make money out of this, an enterprise in which people are betting on our players, and we're going to take money because people are betting on our players. Some people have a moral problem with that.
So it's not going to be simple. I'm not sure -- sometimes when you think something is just going to be horrible and an incredible mess, it comes into play, and a year or two later, you find out, well, you know, that's not as impactful as I thought it would be.
We've seen that in recent years in college athletics with some things. The full cost of attendance, there was all kinds of ruckus that because it wasn't exactly the same at every institution that it was going to impact recruiting tremendously. Well, I ask coaches now, and it's like, no, that really hasn't happened. Well, some people thought the world was coming to an end when we went to full cost of attendance.
And this is different, but there are just a lot of questions there to answer and to work through. I don't think there are a lot of -- here or anywhere else, in talking with Mark Emmert and his staff and my peer commissioners. There aren't a lot of answers there right now. I think we pretty much know what the questions are, but we don't have the answers yet. As I think I said earlier, we've got ten states to deal with just in the ACC.
One thing that would seem to make some sense to me is if Congress put some parameters to bring some consistency state to state, if a state decided to legalize gambling. I'm not saying you take that right away from the states, I'm just saying that if the state of North Carolina decided to -- or the state of Florida decided to legalize gambling, it would have certain parameters that it had to work within that were mandated by the Federal Government. Seems to me that might be helpful in at least laying out some consistency state to state. That's coming from a very naive point of view.
You can read the full transcript here: http://asaptext.com/orgs/theacc/484/browse_file.php?browse_file_name=./transcripts/30086.html