It wasn’t an easy decision, to hear Jim Phillips describe it. But the ACC commissioner as well as the league’s board of directors thought it was necessary.
After seven decades in Greensboro – the only home the ACC has ever known – the conference is relocating its offices to Charlotte. It’s a move that became official Tuesday after the ACC announced last year that it was considering a move.
It won’t happen immediately. The league will use the 2022-23 academic year as a transition period to complete the move from Greensboro, which has housed the league’s headquarters since 1953. Phillips said the ACC also made a handful of trips to Orlando, another finalist for the relocation.
In the end, though, Charlotte – a city that already hosts a number of league championship events, including the ACC football title game – made the most sense for a conference looking to increase its visibility within the landscape of college athletics.
“This decision is focused on the future of the ACC and best positioning the ACC for long-term success,” Phillips said.
In a news release sent out Tuesday morning, the league cited its partnership with Newmark, a commercial real-estate services firm, that helped lead a “data-drive comparison and evaluation” used to make the relocation decision by the league’s board, which represents all 15 of the ACC’s member institutions. Phillips detailed in a conference call with media members later exactly what data was taken into consideration, including Charlotte’s growing population, a large airport easily accessible for all of its schools and a “forward-facing brand opportunity.”
“We have right around 80,000 ACC graduates that live in the Charlotte region,” Phillips said. “It’s home to nearly 500 global and regional headquarters in the city-land area. So those are part of the data-driven as well as other elements that were deeply considered by the board and by myself.”
North Carolina reportedly sweetened its bid to keep the league in state by recently earmarking $15 million for the conference in its proposed operating budget. In order to receive those funds, though, the ACC has to keep its headquarters there for at least 15 more years and hold more than 20 postseason events by 2034 that aren’t already scheduled to be hosted by the state, including additional men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and baseball tournaments.
“The state was incredibly neutral to where the conference office would be located,” Phillips said. “It just did not want to see it leave the state.”
Asked if the ACC will be able to meet those requirements in order to receive that additional revenue, Phillips said there will be ”no hesitancy at all.”
Some of those future basketball tournaments will be required to be held in Greensboro, where the Greensboro Coliseum has hosted the men’s tournament more than any other venue. The men’s tournament will return to Greensboro in 2023 after being played in Brooklyn earlier this year.
Phillips said it’s not the conference’s intention to forget about the Gate City when it comes to hosting various postseason events in the future, adding it’s been a “phenomenal home” for championships in multiple sports.
“Just because the physical placement of the office is in a different location doesn’t at all necessarily impact the opportunity that Greensboro will have,” Phillips said. “I think you’re going to continue to see Greensboro in that rotation as we look into the future.”
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