Neff heads to ACC spring meetings looking for progress on revenue sharing

Clemson AD Graham Neff is among the league administrators set to gather at the ACC spring meetings next week.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sat May 13 07:00:16 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON – Graham Neff is headed to next week’s ACC spring meetings, and he is hoping for progress on a new revenue model that would generate a bigger share of the money for the schools that bring in a greater share of the wealth.

The ACC currently distributes annual league-wide profits equally among its 14 member schools, with Notre Dame, a full-time member in every sport but football, getting a reduced share. Each school received $36.1 million last year, but the ACC is already trailing the SEC and Big Ten conferences by as much as $20 million and that gap is expected to grow in the coming years.

Neff, Clemson’s Athletic Director, has been one of the leading voices in finding a model that rewards schools for appearances in the College Football Playoff, bigger bowl games, and NCAA Tournament appearances in basketball.

The league convenes at Amelia Island next Monday through Wednesday, and Neff is once again expecting the topic to be brought to the fore.

“We certainly expect to dive into revenue distribution. A lot of folks have talked about it,” Neff said. “That's probably top of the list. Just really important. And I've been consistent within our groups and discussions within the league of how Clemson sees things. And from incentivizing investment in football, brand value of football, television metrics, post-season success and College Football Playoffs.”

Neff feels like Clemson has done more than its share with six appearances in the College Football Playoff, four appearances in the title games, and with two National Championships. That’s just one of the reasons he hopes to see progress along that front.

“We certainly have helped move the needle for the league and for the revenue associated with league,” he said. “And we feel like that it should be at a point where there's some more revenue that follows those, that help distribution, that follows those that help drive the revenue. And so, we'll plan to be consistent on that discussion and really direct on how I share how Clemson sees it and we'll continue to talk about it. I hope we have some progress.”

There will also be discussions on other topics that concern Clemson, including basketball.

“I think a lot of focus on basketball scheduling and net RPI,” Neff said. “Conference schedule, strategy, brand. So a lot of focus on basketball. And basketball coaches, men's and women's will be there, so they kind of huddle in their coaching groups. And then we have time with ADs.”

The ACC’s lack of success on the hardwood, along with the fact that Clemson missed the tournament this season despite 23 wins overall and 14 wins in the conference, will come up as well.

“That is an important topic given how last year and the last couple years for the ACC have transpired. And we're obviously a great test case this past year being one of the first four out,” Neff said. “So a lot of discussion there. We do need to talk on football tiebreaker scenarios, right? Because a year ago at these meetings we officially adopted the division-less schedule and round-robin permanent opponents. We've done some work on, hey, how does tiebreaker scenario work for the championship game? So that's operational in nature.”