Jim Phillips is determined to make it to Dublin for Saturday’s showdown between No. 10 Florida State and Georgia Tech at Aviva Stadium.
Phillips, the commissioner of the ACC, had plans to visit Ireland’s capital in 2022, but news of the latest round of conference realignment forced Phillips to remain stateside. In 2023, another planned voyage was detoured by the ACC adding California, Stanford and SMU to the league, which required Phillips’ full attention and once again kept him in the USA.
But this week, even though his wife and five children have to attend a wedding in Milwaukee, and even though he’s a few days removed from his 28th wedding anniversary, Phillips will head across the pond Wednesday night to finally set foot on Irish soil.
“We’ll see if we make it to a 29th year,” Phillips joked in a conversation with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday.
Phillips is starting this week in Bristol, Connecticut, home to ESPN and ACC Network. It’s there that he will help celebrate ACC Network’s fifth anniversary.
Then it will be off to Ireland where Phillips will take in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic between two of his conference’s own.
“It’s so important to the league. It’s our first ACC conference game of the season, two great schools, two great football programs, a chance to play in Week 0 and really capture the majority of the country that is craving for college football,” Phillips said. “Being able to go support and show commitment to our student-athletes, coaches and schools is really important to me. Always has been.
“And I think you have to be present and make sure you’re at events like this. I’m honored to go, and I think it’s going to be just a tremendous experience for our schools and a great chance to showcase ACC football.”
Phillips’ ACC has seen a wide range of changes since he took command of the conference in February 2021. The aforementioned three schools joined the league this summer, but that expansion was set to the backdrop of ongoing litigation by both Florida State and Clemson who strongly have hinted there respective desires to possibly depart the league.
That hasn’t deterred Phillips in continuing to support either institution. And he continued to laud FSU for their cooperation in agreeing to Saturday’s matchup on European soil.
“It was well thought-out. Really thank the two schools, especially Georgia Tech giving up a home game — someone was going to have to give up a game at home to move,” Phillips said. “(Tech president) Angel Cabrera deserves a ton of credit, and (Tech athletic director) J Batt, but also (FSU president) Rick McCullough and (FSU athletic director) Michael Alford. And the two coaches (Tech’s Brent Key and FSU’s Mike Norvell) deserve credit for making it happen.
“It would have been easy for someone to say no for a variety of good reasons. We were really able to work together collaboratively. It should just be a great opportunity for the league.”
Phillips added he would be remiss if he didn’t thank former ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN president of content Burke Magnus, ESPN vice president Rosalyn Durant and ESPN senior vice president Nick Dawson, among others. The network has been instrumental in helping launch and maintain what is now one of only three stations dedicated to coverage a college conference (Big Ten and SEC the others).
The commissioner pointed out that having a channel highlighting the conference 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year has been invaluable to the league’s growth.
“It’s been a boon success for us,” he added. “Certainly it’s driven by football and basketball, but also we have 25 other sports that really benefit from it. It’ll be a celebratory couple days in Bristol and looking forward to being with our ESPN family.”
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