CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Last week was a busy one for Jim Phillips.
As he enters his fifth year as the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, he’s had to grapple with a rapidly changing landscape in college sports. NIL has transformed recruiting, the transfer portal has changed roster management, and conference realignment driven by revenue from media rights deals for football has sparked some restlessness and uncertainty.
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Under Phillips, the ACC has largely been able to weather those storms. The 2024-25 seasons were the first with Cal, Stanford and SMU as full members, and the Mustangs made the College Football Playoff. The ACC also settled lawsuits with Clemson and Florida State, ensuring the short-term future of the the league.
Across Phillips’ tenure as commissioner, the ACC has also been incredibly successful in a wide variety of women’s sports. Just take a look at the 2024-25 season. The ACC captured national championships in women’s soccer and women’s lacrosse, both won by North Carolina. The Final Four in women’s soccer was essentially an ACC invitational with the Tar Heels, Duke, Stanford and Wake Forest making the national semifinals. In volleyball, two ACC teams, Louisville and Pitt, made the Final Four. In women’s basketball, eight ACC teams made the NCAA Tournament and four of them hosted opening-weekend games as top-16 seeds. Nine ACC teams received bids to the NCAA softball tournament, the second-most of any conference.
Between his state-of-the-conference address on Tuesday and the media frenzy that followed around new North Carolina coach Bill Belichick on Thursday, Phillips carved out some time to talk with SB Nation about all things women’s sports:
This conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
How do you think the House Settlement — which brings an increase in scholarships and changes to roster sizes — will impact women’s sports, and is there any concern about that?
Phillips: “I’m very excited about this — the change that’s been agreed upon by the plaintiffs and the defendants that now allows more scholarships to student athletes. For our men and for our women to now have those scholarship caps lifted, it will only provide more opportunities and provide more funding for our student-athletes in our Olympic sports. The rev share and the NIL piece of this thing, I don’t think anybody knows just yet. But what I would say, for our conference, I know that our schools are committed to continuing to support broad-based programming at a incredibly high level. This conference, for 73 years, has been a leader when it comes to opportunities for women and Title IX and broad-based programming. We have 15 women’s sports and 13 male sports. So, I think early signs are, with these changes and the roster limits and scholarships and some of those things, as well as some revenue now directly benefiting student athletes, we’ll be in a good place.”
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To stay with House and rev share for a moment, it feels like — across the Power 4 — football is going to get a lot of money, men’s basketball is going to get a lot of money, and it feels like that third piece of the pie for a lot of schools is going to women’s basketball. Has there been any talk about a minimum spending number for revenue sharing for women’s hoops to keep the ACC at the top of that sport?
Phillips: “So, we’ve not done anything relative to a mandate or saying, ‘you have to do this,’ for a certain amount of investment. Our presidents and chancellors, athletic directors and senior women’s administrators have all been unified in the direction of supporting women’s basketball… We recently went to a distribution model where a portion of our revenue at the ACC that would go to success in football and in men’s basketball. But we did not pass that until we also agreed that if women’s basketball created the opportunity for units to be given that we would also do the same thing with our distribution of revenue based on athletic success in those three sports. I’m really proud of that. That was really driven by our presidents and chancellors and obviously supported highly by our athletic directors. So, we’re there, distributing additional money for those teams that have had really good seasons. That, to me, is a clear indication that you’re rewarding those that are investing. And so the idea is, can we continue to push forward and invest, and invest more in women’s sports, and in this case, women’s basketball? Because not only is it the right thing to do, but there’s a tangible financial benefit for you doing so.”
Right. Because of the ACC’s success initiative, there’s an incentive to spend money on women’s basketball and be good at it.
Phillips: “Absolutely. You said it well.”
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To stay on units for women’s basketball, I think there are some coaches who have some buyer’s remorse on the TV deal with ESPN, because women’s basketball viewership is booming, but their tournament is lumped in with a bunch of others in this package. Dawn Staley is someone who has called for ESPN to come back to the table and renegotiate. Do you think that’s even possible? And do you think women’s basketball is ready for it’s own TV deal?
Phillips: “You know, the NCAA is led by a tremendous president (Charlie Baker) who negotiated the deal. I don’t have the figures, but I know the deal was substantially larger than it was last time. I’m sure they tried to get every dollar they could from our TV partner, ESPN, and that everybody felt good about it based on what the what the value of women’s basketball was at that particular time. I don’t think there’s ever a TV deal that you have, that you don’t go back and wish maybe you had a little bit more. I would think that as we watch what happens in the next couple years that Charlie would, you know, likely reengage with ESPN. I really respect all of those comments that I hear, not only from Coach Staley, but others as well. These are amazing women in the game, and men coaches as well, and they should continue to advocate for additional support. That’s why we’ve made the strides that we’ve made. But we still have a ways to go, and we don’t want to just be complacent about it, or say that there’s not more work to be done, because there is.”
The women’s basketball tournament has had this double-regional format for a few years now. This past season, we had some coaches like Geno Auriemma, Kim Mulkey and Vic Schaefer loudly complain about this format. Do you have any opinion on four regionals versus two and what’s better for the sport?
Phillips: “To me, as stewards of the game, we owe the membership and the great game of women’s college basketball to continue to have an assessment on that. And I totally understand what they’re saying, because I have been around long enough to see it… But the game is growing. And similar to my last answer, I don’t think you can sit idle when you’re trying to nurture and develop and continuing to grow the game. These are pivotal moments. We should look at it with no predetermined outcomes and see what’s right. Because it would be great if we could get to the point where we did go to more sites and spread the game around even more. But I know that’s delicate, because it is based on some financial stuff, and it is based on how many fans would attend, and some of those things. We want our student athletes to have great experiences and to play in sold out arenas. And we’re moving in that direction. So we’ve made progress, but again, I think there’s still some more work to do.”
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The ACC women’s basketball tournament is going to the metro Atlanta area this season. There was a couple of different cities in the mix for the bid. In 2027, the tournament is in Charlotte. Could you see the women’s tournament rotating through a few different host sites like men’s tournament does now?
Phillips: “I don’t want to say that we’re at that point, but yes, we wouldn’t have taken it out of North Carolina if we weren’t interested in really seeing what the response will be. In this particular case, it’s what will be the response of the Greater Atlanta area? I think it’s healthy… If we can grow the game, if we can get into different markets, that only helps this league, it helps those student-athletes, coaches, universities, and the rest of it. So, I’m very excited about trying this out, and no one knows how it’s going to go until we go through it. We’ve gotten great support from from the group down in Atlanta. They’re excited about it.”
The other two women’s sports that seem to be booming and growing in viewership and audience are volleyball and softball. How can the ACC capitalize on that growth?
Phillips: “I’m really proud. And credit again to our presidents, chancellors and athletic directors. These have been campus decisions to support those programs. We try to provide the funding as best we can. It’s the school’s dollars, and they do what they see as best. So when you look at volleyball and where we’ve been, that’s been a wonderful thing to see. It’s been Pitt, Louisville, Georgia Tech, SMU, and it’s growing. And in softball, it’s the same thing. We’ve had Florida State, a historic program, but Clemson and Duke — those are newer programs that have gotten into the NCAA Tournament and have really done well. So, I think you’re going to see a strong continuation of that, and I’m proud of our coaches that are recruiting exceptional talent in those two sports, volleyball and softball… Part of it too, I should say, is they’ve really had great templates to follow when you think about the history of this conference in soccer and lacrosse and field hockey and others.”
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The NCAA recommended adding flag football to its Emerging Sports for Women program. We’ve had a handful of Division I schools start varsity teams, in addition to a bunch more at the Division II and III levels. Is the ACC watching this? Are there presidents talking about adding it as a sport?
Phillips: “We are watching. We’ve had a few preliminary conversations, but nothing of substance. I think we’re all kind of watching what’s happening with the House Settlement and NIL. The focus has really been on implementing that, trying to do the very best we can for all of our student-athletes with additional scholarships, different additional revenue. So, we haven’t really had the proper time to really explore what’s happening in women’s flag football.”
