AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. – The Ritz-Carlton hotel sits just beyond tropical canopy roads in the northeast corridor of Florida's north-most Atlantic coast.
Home of the annual ACC Spring Meetings, thespiffy establishment appears unchanging on the surface. But inside, there are signs of stagnation and slipping quality.
Without getting into specifics, there were things smeared on a bathroom wall that one would not want smeared on any wall. The same sofas I've sat on camping out for coaches and ADs a few days each May are stained now. With what, I am not sure. A few media members grumbled over the renowned pink Himalayan salt not being in stock in a couple of the bathrooms. The nerve!
That's not to say that the Ritz still isn't ritzy. The $7 cup of tea sure indicates as much.
But it's not what it was when I started trekking across I-10 for the yearly meetings a decade ago.
And there's your not-so-subtle metaphor for the state of the ACC during this year's round of meetings among athletic directors, football coaches, men's and women's basketball coaches, and ACC brass led by commissioner Jim Phillips. Two of the three premier programs in the conference are in open litigation with the ACC, while the third and symbolic blueblood of Tobacco Road isbecoming increasingly (and publicly) disgruntled with the current financial makeup of the league.
The meetings got going on dreary Monday afternoon, with loud applause ending an address from NCAA president Charlie Baker. Baker immediately addressed reporters afterwards, discussing the House vs. NCAA as he wouldn't put a timeline on a potential settlement…but acknowledged that a settlement would be the start of a further complicated process of figuring out how to share revenue with college athletes. A reported potential settlement would be about $2.7 billion and would include a revenue-sharing model that could pay athletes $20 million annually.
So, yes, business as usual.
But as Baker was spending a few minutes with the media scrum, North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham was shaking his head and trying to keep his feet moving as he spoke with a couple reporters behind Baker. Cunningham essentially said that he hadn't fully read the report from WRAL that had comments from multiple UNC Board of Trustees members who were quite critical of Cunningham's vision as the elephant in the room 500 miles south was addressed up in Chapel Hill:
"Carolina's ability to maintain excellence at a high level is going to require really prudent budgeting and revenue models and potential cost cutting," said trustee and former chairman Dave Boliek. "A lot of it is due to the revenue or lack thereof of revenue that we're not receiving from the ACC deal."
"I am advocating for that," he added. "That's what we need to do. We need to do everything we can to get there. Or the alternative is the ACC is going to have to reconstruct itself. I think all options are on the table."
Current UNC chair John Preyer said in March that the ACC was "not acting as if it is representing the best interests" of its "top tier" schools like "Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina."
The same concerns FSU expressed a year ago behind closed doors at the ACC Spring Meetings, and then much more publicly in August before entering in a dueling lawsuit against the ACC, is what some members of UNC's BoT are now saying out loud. The timing, as spring meetings start, doesn't feel coincidental, by the way. Cunningham chastised FSU for "barking" when the quieter approach turned loud. What will he do now that his bosses are barking, too?
Cunningham is expected to address his BoT later this week when he returns to North Carolina.
In the meantime, he'll be sitting in on meetings with conference members FSU and Clemson. The two football powers, who generate the most revenue for the league, are currently in lawsuits against the ACC as both plaintiffs and defendants, encompassing three different states as they battle over nine-figure exit fees and television rights. This creates massive uncertainty for the conference's future, but UNC is considered the linchpin of the conference. Without UNC, the ACC – it's headquarters in Charlotte and heart not too far down Tobacco Road – could crumble.
And that's the rub as we get into Day 2 of spring meetings on another rainy day in paradise.
Is there anything the ACC could do now to appease the powers like FSU, Clemson, and now UNC? Is there more than can be done to make sure your breadwinners are compensated closer to what all SEC and Big Ten programs will be making annually? Or has that ship sailed?
Welcome to the ACC Spring Meetings. Hopefully someone calls a custodian because things could get even messier.
