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The status quo known as the Bowl Championship Series is in place for at least the next six years, but administrators and executives at ACC schools briefly pondered advocating an amendment of the system before considerable opposition made the "Plus-One" concept moot, commissioner John D. Swofford said today.

Speaking this morning at the ACC's annual preseason foobtall media sessions, Swofford said the "Plus-One" model, which would have effectively created a four-team championship tournament in major-college football, was a topic at the BCS board meetings in April. Under that format, the top four teams in the final regular-season BCS standings would be seeded 1-4 and would play in two established bowls. The winners of those games would then meet in the BCS title game. The existing structure enumerates two teams for the championship contest -- No. 1 and No. 2 in the BCS regular-season standings.

"We took a vote," Swofford said of his ACC colleagues, some of whom indicated unprecedented willingness to consider the "Plus-One" idea. "Others (nationally) were so strong in favor of retaining the current format that our vote didn't matter.

"The perameters being considered are several. One is the respect the college football community has for the bowl system. Secondly, the (institutions') presidents were not interested in starting anything that commenced the exam period. They're not interested in taking somebody into the second semester. They strongly feel college football should be a one-semester sport. The third is the health of the regular season."

Swofford is the chief administrator of the BCS in the 2008-09 season and will begin discussions this fall on the next television contract, which will begin with the 2010-11 bowl season. Fox has the next two years in a deal that brings each ACC school between $1.2 and $1.5 million on average per year.

TAMPA BOUND: Public ticket sales for the ACC championship game, set for Tampa, Fla., for the first time, begin on July 26. The pre-sale has been encouraging, Swofford said, as nearly half of Raymond James Stadium has been claimed. The league is setting ticket prices as low as $25 and will bring in an as yet-unnamed national recording act to play a post-game concert. The league office and the local organizing committee are looking at new ways to spark interest in an era of economic disturbance, and the music and a high school all-star game to be played on the Raymond James field only after after the ACC title are chief among them.

After two years in Tampa, the ACC championship will move to Charlotte in 2010 and 2011. A solid first year in Jacksonville, Fla., was followed by bad weather in 2006 and a high no-show total last year, when fans weren't turned on even though the pairing of No. 6 Boston College and No. 11 Virginia Tech was one of the best numerical matchups on paper in all of December or January.