In today's Sunday paper, the News & Record published a long article from a one-on-one, question-and-answer session with ACC commissioner John Swofford.
The ink-and-paper version included a selection of questions from the interview, which took place Thursday afternoon in Swofford’s office at the ACC headquarters near the Grandover Resort.
In short: Some stuff got left out for space considerations.
If you want more, the whole interview follows.
Q: Looking back on the 2008-09 school year, was there any one thing that you were particularly proud of?
A: You have to point to (North Carolina's) national championship in men's basketball. That's always special in this league or in any conference. Any time one of your schools wins another one, that just reinforces the tradition and enhances ACC basketball. And (Virginia Tech) won the Orange Bowl in football. Any time you have that kind of success in basketball and football, that's a great year. Certainly those were highlights, and winning five national championships in various sports were highlights. ... Football-wise having 10 teams play in bowls, which was a first in NCAA (history), I think said a lot about the depth we're developing in football. It was a good year for us.
Q: Along those same lines, was there anything from last year that was a disappointment in any way or that you wish happened differently?
A: I tend to look at things as half-full rather than half-empty. That's just the perspective I take. It was just a generally positive year for us all the way around, whether it was competitively or off the fields and courts. Our programs are doing very well academically, and that's always been a part of the culture of this conference. That balance of academics and athletics, I think it's really important for us to maintain that and emphasize the importance of it. … At the same time, there are always things that can be done better in any organization, and we're always committed to try to find those better ways or doing things.
Q: Ten out of 12 ACC teams played in bowl games last season. That's a tough act to follow. How do you follow up something like that?
A: I think the way you follow it up is sustaining that kind of competitive depth in the league. And I'm looking forward to a year in which we have a team involved in the national championship picture, which I'm confident that we'll have at some point. What we've seen since expansion, from a football standpoint, is a very high level of interest from fans, from a media coverage standpoint, from a television coverage standpoint. We've had excellent divisional races that have generally gone right down to the last weekend of the season, and that enhances the interest level in the sport. The guaranteed tie-in with the Orange Bowl is something that is very, very good for us. … I think we're on an excellent track in terms of football and commitment to the sport throughout the league.
Q: The ACC is getting ready to start its sixth season since adding Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech. Has expansion gone the way you hoped it would back in 2003?
A: From our perspective, it's gone extraordinarily well. It has gone the way we would have hoped and expected it to go. We added three programs that from a geographic standpoint and from a competitive standpoint have without question improved us as a conference in multiple ways. They're three schools that have fit in tremendously well to the culture of the league, to what our goals are and what our values system is. That's been pleasing to see, because I think that our league is something special from a cultural and values standpoint.
Q: Were you nervous going into it?
A: No, I wasn’t nervous. In fact, I was very, very confident that it would go in a seamless way. And the reason I was confident about it is that a lot of discussion and evaluation had been done before the (existing ACC) schools made the decision to expand and about the schools that were coming into the league. The transition from nine to 12 within the league has gone remarkably well in terms of the fit. You go to the southern extreme with Miami and to the northern extreme with Boston College and Virginia Tech being very close to the heartland of the ACC. It's just been positive in every respect, I think, in terms of positioning us not only for the present but certainly for the future.
Q: At the time, some people called it a reckless move. Was it?
A: It was extraordinarily well analyzed beforehand, and thoroughly discussed internally with the nine member institutions. We had added Georgia Tech in the past. We had added Florida State in the past. But adding three is much different than adding one.
Q: Looking back at expansion now, is there anything you would’ve done differently if you had it to do all over again?
A: I think we would pretty much do it the same way. … I don't know that this league will be expanding again any time soon; 12 is, I think, the right number to have for this league and we'll be at that number for the foreseeable future. But I think – and we said this at the time – the only thing that would be done differently is no on-site visits to potential members of the conference. Those were probably something that in today's world aren’t as necessary as when the bylaws were written that (included on-site visits) as a part of the process. When those rules were written, the world wasn't quite as small, so to speak, and you weren't as familiar with certain institutions at this level athletically. That's no longer a part of our bylaws in an expansion process, because we felt like, after the fact, those (on-site visits) weren't anything that was terribly necessary.
Q: The country is in the midst of a terrible economic downturn right now. People who look on from afar probably think the ACC is impervious to something like that. How has the down economy affected the ACC and are there any measures the conference will have to take this year to control costs?
A: We went through a budget process back in the winter and spring in which we stepped back and fully evaluated the conference budget. We're going into this year with budget reductions of a little over 6 percent for the year. Our schools are all, without question, impacted. You’ve seen budget cuts across the campuses of every institution in the league to one degree or another. Certainly athletics at those institutions is not immune to that. I think the sports world is cushioned to some degree, but I don’t think it’s immune. Adjustments have been made throughout the league to deal with this period of time and the economic impact that is there. … I think our schools have looked at the upcoming year. They've stepped back to look at ticket prices, marketing strategies. One of the great things about college athletics is the fact that a lot of the fan base, whether it's current students or alumni, have very real and emotional ties to their institution and the teams that represent that institution. In times like these, that's really important.
Q: The ACC's seven-year, $258 million TV deal with ABC and ESPN runs out in 2011. This seems like it would be an awful time to negotiate a new deal. Is that the case?
A: We are having some discussions with our current rights holders, and that's where our focus is right now. We also are looking at other possibilities that might be out there at some point and time. But our focus right now is with Raycom and ESPN/ABC. Our current contracts are good ones and are guaranteed for this year and next year. We will be going into a negotiation period contractually in the spring of 2010. You generally negotiate a year in advance. … Television negotiations a lot of times are about circumstance and about timing. Sometimes your contracts run out at an opportune time, and sometimes they run out at a more challenging time. The marketplace is always changing, too, in terms of distribution platforms and opportunities with new media that have not been there before. Sometimes it's new media that people haven't figured out how to monetize. We're trying to figure all of that out as we look ahead to new contracts. But we have excellent rights holders and television partners. There may be others out there who would be interested in jumping into the fray. You don’t know what the competition might be that has an interest down the road. You don't know exactly what the economy will be a year from now. All of that can ultimately come into play.
Q: How is the ACC approaching those new media?
A: We're constantly trying to keep up with what it is and what the opportunities are for distribution. And if indeed that distribution opportunity is there, how is it monetized? And how could it be used to the benefit of the conference and our schools, both in terms of exposure and revenue? Sometimes I look at some of the platforms that are there and I think back to a time when I was an assistant AD in this league in the late 1970s and sat in on the first meeting when ESPN came to visit with the conference. You would've had to have been quite a visionary that day in 1978 or '79 to fully understand what ESPN would become and what cable would become. I relate back to that in looking at today's streaming and what the future may bring on your computer and on your cell phone. How do you bring that into play with what currently exists in the marketplace? … We just have to try to keep up with it. The learning curve is fairly steep, but that’s part of the fun and part of the challenge.
Q: What about you personally? Are you good with technology? Are you on Facebook or Twitter?
A: No, I'm not. But I do think it’s important to understand its use and its importance to our industry. I learn a lot. I listen a lot. And the league is on (Facebook and Twitter).
Q: A conference championship football game was one of the driving forces behind expansion. Has that game been all you thought it would be?
A: In all aspects except one: Attendance on a consistent basis is not where we want it to be. The first year (Florida State vs. Virginia Tech) was outstanding. The years since have not met our expectations. But we've been very happy with every other aspect – on the field, competitively, the divisional races, the fact the winner automatically goes to the Orange Bowl if it's not in the national championship game, the television exposure and dollars are excellent. … We just need to develop a consistency of attendance. Next year we come to Charlotte for a two-year period. The game, so far, has to some degree proven to be what I call participant sensitive. Matchups have a lot to do with attendance. We've had excellent games, but (attendance) is the only aspect of it we need to continue to work on and build on.
Q: Any surprises associated with the championship game?
A: We've had five of our schools already participate in a short period of time. I think that's a surprise to a lot of people. I think some people felt that Miami and Florida State would dominate that game right off the bat. Obviously, that has not happened. In a lot of ways, that's good for our conference because it gives more schools a taste of the championship game and the Orange Bowl. And that shows that any school in our league has the opportunity to play for a championship. I think that's healthy for our league in its infancy with 12 members.
Q: The cost of guarantee games has spiraled upward. Georgia will reportedly pay North Texas more than $900,000 to come play. Is the rising cost of those games a concern in the ACC?
A: It is a concern from a scheduling standpoint and a concern for our schools. There seems to be more and more of that, and less and less of quality intersectional games that fans really want to see and are good for college football. But that's really an institutional matter, and it differs from institution to institution in terms of their scheduling philosophy. You have to look at what's best for a particular program and where that program is competitively. But the cost of those games has gone up dramatically. I don’t know that it's a red flag, but it's something that is of concern. There's not a lot we can do about it from a conference level … but it makes it more difficult to schedule for some schools when the going rate for trying to have a balanced 12-game schedule comes into play.
Q: You’re also the BCS commissioner. Is that rewarding or is that thankless?
A: Recently it seems to be rather thankless. I say that jokingly. This is our second time around as the coordinating conference for the BCS. This particular cycle has been challenging and very active. Some of it was expected, and some of it unexpected. And it’s been rewarding in this sense: We renegotiated the BCS television contracts last fall and that turned out really well, and that’s important for the BCS and for our schools because of exposure. We went from Fox over the air to ESPN on cable for the next four-year cycle, and that turned out well. When you’re involved in something like that and it turns out well, that’s where your feeling of reward comes. Those negotiations impact in a positive way all 11 BCS conferences.
Q: What’s different about being BCS commissioner this time compared to last time?
A: The constant scrutiny and desire on the part of some to have a playoff and congressional intervention into college football, that’s been challenging. That’s taken a lot of time and taken a lot of energy. It’s been interesting coordinating the BCS this time. The last time, it was in the third and fourth years of the BCS, so it was still relatively new and it was not in a cycle where I was involved with negotiating television or bowl contracts. Then in this cycle, we’re in years 10 and 11 of the BCS, it’s very different in the sense of its magnitude. … Just the interest level and the bigness of it all. The internal desires of a few conferences who feel like they should have more. It’s very different this time around than last time.
Q: I take it that’s where the challenge comes in?
A: It is. It is. But I think it says a lot about college football, because it’s become so much more of a national game compared to a regional game like it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. It’s fair to say it’s at its absolute height from an interest standpoint, from a success standpoint. The regular season is the most successful in all of sport. It’s been an evolution from the days when you just had the bowls and the conference tie-ins. Most years you couldn’t have a national championship game because No. 1 would be tied into the Rose Bowl and No. 2 might be tied into the Orange Bowl or the Sugar Bowl or in those days the Cotton Bowl. They couldn’t play each other.
Q: So you believe the system today is better than those days?
A: The goals of the BCS are really very simple. As complicated as the process sometimes seems, the goals are simple: to create the opportunity to have No. 1 play No. 2 in a national championship game while at the same time maintaining the traditional history of the bowl games. The BCS has been very successful in doing those two things. But what it’s done, I think, is whetted the appetite of the sports fan to want more of that in the postseason: some type of playoff. The concern, in a lot of circles in the various conferences, is what would that mean? Do you create a playoff and minimize the regular season? And the (college) presidents are not very interested in having a playoff that goes into the second semester. They’re not very interested in having a playoff that starts sooner and interferes with final exams.
Q: What about using the existing bowls as a playoff system?
A: When you start drilling down into the actualities of that, it gets pretty complicated. Do fans have the time and the money? Are they going to go to Miami for a playoff game, then turn around and go to Atlanta the next week for another playoff game, and then go to Pasadena for the championship game? What would that mean to the bowl system? Would you have considerably fewer teams have the opportunity to play a postseason game? Some people would say it doesn’t matter whether those (smaller) games are played or not. But a lot of other people think those games are meaningful. The most teams you could have in a playoff system would be 16. Some people would say, ‘Well, you could still have some other bowl games.’ But how long would they last? And what would it do to the regular season? Right now in college football, every Saturday is the equivalent of a playoff game. In reality, the playoff is the regular season.
Q: Could there be changes in the BCS format in years to come?
A: We had some support in our league, and personally I thought that a plus-one model would maybe a worthy compromise. You seed four teams and they would play in two of the existing bowl games, and the winners would then advance to a national championship game. That would keep it in the parameters of what our presidents and conferences generally want. But all 11 conferences have voted to go forward with the system we now have for the next four-year cycle while continuing to look at changes that may make it better. … I think what’s good about all this is the interest level, and the fact that people are passionate about it. They love college football. They care about college football. There’s just different opinions as to what’s best for the game.
