The Atlantic coast conference generated $ 711 million for academic year 2023-24, according to new fiscal documents published by the League, distributing an average of $ 45 million to each of its 14 full-time member schools, a new record for the conference.
Financial reports, which cover the last year of ACC Athletics before SMU, Stanford and Cal, show a small increase in income year after year and an increase of approximately 56% in the income of five years ago.
While the income distribution places the ACC solidly in third place between the conferences, it still follows the SEC and Big Ten by considerable margin. These relative deficits have remained a source of dismay for members and have resulted in demands presented by the state of Florida (in December 2023) and Clemsson (in February 2024) to challenge the granting of ACC rights, which unites the League until June 2036.
Commissioner Jim Phillips said in the annual spring meetings this week that he believed that the agreement would provide stability for the ACC for at least the next three or four years.
“I think you have to settle,” Phillips said. “I think that university athletics needs to be established, not only the action. I think we have positioned ourselves for that. Chaos and constant asked what is happening here or there, which distracts the business in question. I feel good about where we are, and although I take things one day at the same time, I think there is a period of time in which, we concentrate and accommodate things.”
After the state of Florida pressed the changes in the income distribution model in 2023, the League adopted a set of “successful initiatives” that would offer a greater payment of postseason income to schools that won the postseason in football and male and female basketball. However, these success initiatives were not implemented in the period of time covered by the latest reports of 990. The sources of several programs have said that these success initiatives combined with the new payments of the brand (based on the TV grades for a period of five years) would help closer the highest programs in the ACC in line with the income generated by the SEC and Big Ten schools.
In its last 990 presentation, the BIG Ten showed $ 880 million in revenues by 2022-23, but those numbers will be significantly higher in subsequent presentations that reflect a new mass television agreement for the conference.
In February, the SEC distributed $ 808 million to its membership for 2023-24, averaging around $ 53 million per school.
