The Atlantic Coast Conference voted Friday to add Stanford, California and SMU next year, providing a landing spot for two more schools from the disintegrating Pac-12 and creating a fourth super conference in major college sports.
The move provides the ACC a windfall of revenue for its current members.
“It really is a transformational day for the ACC,” Commissioner Jim Phillips said.
Starting in August 2024, the league with Tobacco Road roots in North Carolina will increase its number of football schools to 17 and 18 in most other sports, with Notre Dame remaining a football independent.
The ACC needed 12 of its 15 members to approve expansion, and the vote was not unanimous.
“I can tell you when we left that call today, everybody was in a really good place and felt really good about the process,” Phillips said.
North Carolina and Florida State both voted no. The Seminoles said the move did not fully address its concerns about the ACC’s revenue distribution model.
“All three schools are outstanding academic and athletic institutions, and our vote against expansion does not reflect on their quality,” Florida State athletic director Michael Alford said. “We look forward to earning new revenue through the ACC’s success incentives initiative, based on our continued excellence. We’re grateful to the league for continuing to listen to our concerns.”
Like the Big Ten and Big 12, the ACC now will have members in at least three time zones.
It will span from Boston in the Northeast to Miami in South Florida, out to Dallas in the heart of the Southwest and up to Northern California, where Stanford and Cal reside. Notre Dame is currently the westernmost ACC school in South Bend, Indiana, with Louisville the farthest west among football members.
The ACC becomes the fourth league, along with the Southeastern Conference, Big Ten and Big 12, to have at least 16 football-playing members, starting in 2024.
The formation of the sprawling leagues has raised concerns about everything from the impact on athletes’ travel to the changing recruiting landscape and the lost rivalries treasured by fans now facing different destinations if they want to cheer on their teams.
Stanford said it expects 22 of its 36 sports to have either no or minimal scheduling changes as the 2024 schedules are set.
“The ACC is really interested in using Dallas as a place where teams might come together to have games to minimize the impact of travel on both eastern members and Cal and Stanford,” Cal Chancellor Carol Christ told reporters.
The move seems to signal an end to this wave of realignment among the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful conferences after three years of turbulent movement that has whittled the so-called Power Five down to four.
