Could UNC exit ACC? Key official says league is failing Tar Heels, other top teams

By Brian Murphy, WRAL

The Atlantic Coast Conference is facing lawsuits from its two biggest football powers: Florida State and, as of this week, Clemson.

And now a top official from the University of North Carolina, the league's most successful overall athletic department and its top basketball brand, is calling out the conference and commissioner Jim Phillips.

"The conference is not acting as if it is representing the best interests of the member schools including the top tier of those schools - Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina," UNC Board of Trustees chairman John Preyer told WRAL on Wednesday.

"Instead, it is acting at the expense of those schools to prop up the bottom tier of the conference in a way that I think is a gross abdication of responsibility. And I lay that at the feet of the commissioner."

Preyer's comments came the same day the ACC filed a counter suit against Clemson in Mecklenburg County. The first hearing in the ACC's lawsuit against Florida State, filed to beat the Seminoles' filing in Florida, is scheduled for Friday in Mecklenburg County.

The ACC pointed to previous statements and moves made by made Phillips, who has said that he's working to alleviate concerns of individual member schools.

As the ACC has financially fallen well behind the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference, its top programs have agitated for change. Seven schools, including North Carolina and NC State, held secret meetings to discuss a course of action. Florida State and Clemson pushed for unequal revenue distribution so that successful programs, particularly in football, could earn more money.

Now Florida State and Clemson have sued, seeking to eliminate the league's withdrawal penalty of approximately $140 million and get around its grant of rights agreement that ties television rights to the ACC through 2036.

The Big Ten and SEC are expected to distribute upwards of $30 million more to its member schools than the ACC has for its schools, the result of lucrative television contracts and larger payouts from the expanding College Football Playoff.

North Carolina is considered both a top expansion target of the Big Ten and SEC and a key school in keeping the ACC together, making its next moves critical to college athletics.

"Carolina has a great recognition that our brand is of interest to other conferences," Preyer said. "And rather than let Carolina explore that, it seems as if the conference and its commissioner want to deny any conversation or latitude that would even potentially allow for that. It's a member organization and I don't feel like all the members of the conference are being well served by that kind of leadership."

That is similar to language used by Clemson in its lawsuit, which claims that the ACC's assertions about the withdrawal fee and grant of rights "hinders Clemson's ability to meaningfully explore its options regarding conference membership."

UNC eyed by other conferences

UNC has attorneys studying the legal issues, but it has not filed suit. The Board of Trustees will meet next week in Chapel Hill and is expected to hear from attorneys during closed session.

After a recent change, UNC must obtain permission from the UNC System Board of Governors and the UNC System president if it wants to switch leagues.

"We have great alignment with our board, with our general counsel and I think that's helpful," UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham told WRAL on Wednesday.

He said the Tar Heels will not be left out of the top tier of college athletics.

"We believe the success they have demonstrated throughout the years will ensure we always have a place to play in the most highly competitive conference, division or whatever the future of college athletics looks like," Cunningham said. "We will be a part of it."

The uncertain nature of what college athletics will look like is complicating matters, including for UNC or other schools that may be looking to leave the ACC. Florida State, in its lawsuit, suggested it could cost $572 million to leave the league right now.

The NCAA and its top conferences face a series of lawsuits about a pay-to-play model as well as two rulings from the National Labor Relations Board that could make college athletes, especially in football and men's basketball, employees. The college model faces challenges from all three branches of the federal government.

And ESPN, which is the ACC's most important partner in that it owns all of the league's television rights, can decide within the next year if it wants to extend its deal for nine more years through 2036, a detail that became public in Florida State's lawsuit.

Now schools are suing the ACC, which is suing right back.

"It just adds to the uncertainty of the future of the league and college athletics in general," Cunningham said.

The ACC's vote to add California, Stanford and Southern Methodist University as new members before the next academic year is a point of contention as well. Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina voted against expansion. The conference's other 12 members, including NC State after initial hesitation, voted yes.

The move was seen as a preemptive strike against future defections, shoring up the league's numbers to prevent it from being destroyed like the Pac-12 or from shrinking to the point where its television contract with ESPN is jeopardized.

"Getting to 18 protects the ACC now and into the future," Phillips said in October. "Schools will ultimately make the decisions that they want."

'Protect the fortress'

The schools will be taking less money for years when they join the league, freeing up more revenue for the existing members of the league, including for its success initiative which Phillips helped get done.

"Some of the vibes and some of the conversations we had with individual institutions, that became apparent that we needed to try to do something financially as well as protect the fortress," Phillips said in October.

"The league is healthy. At the end of the day, my job is to run the ACC and make sure it's healthy for the next 70 years as it has been the last 70 years. I cannot control individual feelings on campuses, but we have addressed head-on anything that our campuses have indicated."

But adding more schools means adding more votes, as Preyer pointed out, which makes it more difficult for some teams to vote for desired changes. That's outside of worries over travel, cost, student-athlete experiences and whether the schools help the performance in football and men's basketball.

"The addition of two schools from California and a school from Texas to the Atlantic Coast Conference has the additional burden of making of it harder," Preyer said. "It effectively creates a further burden on those schools that are not feeling well served by the conference, by the commissioner. By adding three schools, you make it harder to do things like, say, dissolve the conference."

The influence of charter members such as UNC and NC State, which voted for expansion, has declined, Preyer said, as the league has grown from eight to 18 over the decades.

"Carolina and North Carolina State had big roles to play in the conference," Preyer said. "That has steadily eroded over time."

Even if the individual influence of schools has waned, the state of North Carolina remains the heart of the ACC, which was founded in Greensboro in 1953 with Duke and Wake Forest as charter members along with UNC and NC State.

The league moved its headquarters to Charlotte last year and will hold the majority of its league championships, including football and men's and women's basketball, in the state for the remainder of the decade.

"Things change, but I've always loved the ACC, and I've always felt like it was the best conference," UNC basketball coach Hubert Davis, a former player and assistant coach for the Tar Heels, said Wednesday. "My hope is that this conference not only will stay together but will even get stronger."