Majority of UNC-CH trustees were ‘strongly’ opposed to ACC expansion
Just hours before the ACC was scheduled to yet again revisit a proposal to extend membership invitations to California, Southern Methodist and Stanford — a proposal the ACC schools’ presidents ultimately approved — the UNC-Chapel Hill board of trustees issued a scathing statement late Thursday, opposing expansion into a “transcontinental conference.”
The statement, from trustees chair David L. Boliek Jr., and vice chair John P. Preyer, said a “strong majority” of the UNC-CH board did not believe adding the three schools would “sufficiently address the income disparity” between the ACC and the Big Ten and SEC.
ACC leaders were set to vote on expansion Monday night, but the meeting was postponed and pushed back after the shooting death of a faculty member on the Chapel Hill campus.
The statement attributed to Boliek and Preyer read in part: “Although we respect the academic excellence and the athletic programs of those institutions, the travel distances for routine in-conference competitive play are too great for this arrangement to make sense for our student-athletes, coaches, alumni and fans. Furthermore, the economics of this newly imagined transcontinental conference do not sufficiently address the income disparity ACC members face.”
The statement ended by saying the trustees were not in favor of any expansion without “ironclad assurances” it would “serve the interest of UNC-Chapel Hill.”
By foregoing some or all of their distributions from the ACC during their first years in the league, the three new members would create a pool of $600 million in additional television-rights revenue from ESPN to be distributed to current members over the next 12 years, the News & Observer has reported, an average of about $3 million per year per school. The ACC’s so-called “revenue gap” with the Big Ten and SEC is $30 million per year per school and growing.
Any conference expansion would require 12 of the 15 schools voting in favor. North Carolina, N.C. State, Clemson and Florida State reportedly have been the bloc of four no votes blocking it. Even if UNC remains opposed, as long as one of the four schools previously against expansion changes its vote, the proposal could move forward.
While the UNC trustees put out the statement Thursday night in opposition, chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz was scheduled to be the person voting for the university. Women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance was among those vocal in his opposition to adding the three schools, and athletic director Bubba Cunningham has underlined UNC’s commitment to the ACC.
“The ACC’s a great league for us,” Cunningham told the News & Observer last week. “We have no plans to leave the ACC. We’re going to strengthen the ACC and do everything we can to make our league as good as we possibly can. We’re going to value what we have. I’m not going to look over my shoulder at what we don’t have.”
UNC coach Mack Brown, in his Monday press conference, was asked about potential ACC expansion and mentioned the same concerns as the trustees about the travel distances and time demands for the athletes, their families and UNC fans.
“Money is the driving force, period,” Brown said. “When we talk about student-athlete welfare, they don’t get a vote. And we need to think about them and taking care of them.”
This story was originally published August 31, 2023 at 10:24 PM.
