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| ACC Commissioner John Swofford |
Since its inception as a seven-school league in '53, the ACC has grown in membership, size and status. As the fourth full-time commissioner,
JOHN SWOFFORD has presided over much of that development since he took office in '97. When the ACC expanded to 12 members in '03 to include Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami, its reach was extended along virtually the entire eastern seaboard. With that geographic growth has come increased exposure of the conference athletic events and, under the direction of Swofford, enhanced broadcast contracts. During his first decade in office, 935 ACC teams competed in NCAA championships and 36 won national titles. Off the field, Swofford championed educational initiatives and the conference’s Inter-Institutional Academic Collaborative. A former QB and DB at the Univ. of North Carolina, Swofford earned a graduate degree in athletic administration from Ohio Univ. before joining the athletic department at the Univ. of Virginia and then returning to his alma mater as assistant A.D. Swofford took time out early this month to speak with SportsBusiness Journal N.Y. bureau chief
Jerry Kavanagh.
Favorite piece of music: “Good Morning, Starshine” (from the musical “Hair”), by my brother,
OLIVER. He and I were very close. He hit it big when I was in college. About nine or 10 years ago, he contracted lymphona. We did a bone marrow transplant and I was his donor. It looked like it was going to work for about six months. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be the answer.
Favorite vacation spot: Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, and Grand Cayman.
Favorite author:
STUART WOODS for beach reading. But mostly what I read are biographies. I collect them, everything from
FDR to
MUHAMMAD ALI and
JFK to
BOGART.
Favortite quote: “The only constant in life is change.”
Favorite movie: “Casablanca.”
Last book read: I’m reading a biography of
AL CAPONE that was written in 1930 by
FRED PAISLEY when Capone was still alive. In reading the book, I wondered how the author stayed alive.
Toughest competitor:
DEAN SMITH.
Best professional advice you received: “Find your passion and do it.”
Most influential person:
HOMER RICE, who was AD at North Carolina when I was there. He had a tremendous impact on me from the time I was a student right through until today. Three areas he exposed me to that made such an impact, professionally and personally, were goal-setting and the importance of attitude and values.
Q: In her book “The Year of Magical Thinking,” JOAN DIDION wrote that she had friends who “shared a habit of mind usually credited to the very successful: They believed absolutely in their own management skills.” What are your management strengths?
Swofford: That’s probably better for other people to evaluate, but I would say it’s an ability to bring people together, an ability to listen, and an ability to have some vision and hopefully have the courage to see that vision through.
Q: What do you know now that would have been most helpful to you earlier in your tenure?
Swofford: Priorities. With experience you learn what truly matters, what is really important and what’s not, which helps you determine where you should focus your time, energies and priorities.
Q: What’s the most pressing issue or challenge the ACC faces today?
Swofford: I think our biggest challenge is to continue to grow -- not literally. To become better at everything we do and learn to maximize our capabilities as a conference as 12 members. So far, I think our conference and our schools have done that extraordinarily well. Like all conferences, one of our fundamental efforts is to continue to maximize our revenues because that benefits our programs so much in finding opportunities for the student/athletes first and foremost and helping to provide funds that allow our programs to be nationally competitive.
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Swofford Believes Addition Of Schools Like Virginia
Tech, Boston College Have Made ACC Stronger |
Q: What has the addition of Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami meant to the ACC?
Swofford: There’s no question that it has put us in a much stronger position. Expansion for us was long-term, and I think we are tremendously well-positioned for whatever the future may bring as a 12-member conference stretching in markets from truly the entire Atlantic coast from Boston to Miami.
Q: Do you foresee any further expansion?
Swofford: I don’t. I think we’re set for many years to come. I think 12 is a number that works very well in terms of championships and scheduling. And as I said geographically we’re in excellent position with the markets that we now have.
Q: I remember when Georgia Tech was added to the ACC.
Swofford: I was around when Georgia Tech came in in 1978, and that brought us the Atlanta market. Florida State in 1991 brought us at least the northern half of the state. Our latest expansion added three institutions that fit our conference very well academically and athletically. One of the things that’s been most important to us is to maintain the culture we have in this league. And by our culture I’m talking about the sense of trust and cooperation among our institutions. That has gone extraordinarily well since Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami have come in. If anything, I think our culture has actually been strengthened.
Q: You mentioned maximizing revenues. Are there any areas of untapped revenue you’re looking at?
Swofford: We’re like everybody else. We really want to keep an eye on the technology, how it is changing and what it means to revenue production. I can’t say that we’ve been able to identify a specific part of the technological changes and distribution opportunities that are out there that would bring immediate new revenues. We have to be attuned to the changes and what will allow us to add new revenue streams and/or maximize those that we’re accustomed to.
Q: Television ratings of ACC football and basketball games have done well on ESPN. Where are you on the idea of an ACC network?
Swofford: We’re watching what happens with the Big Ten Network. Our contracts run through 2010-11 in both football and basketball. They’re separate contracts but they sync with each other chronologically. And so we’ve got several years to take a look at that. We’re constantly evaluating the future of our television contracts and the best ways of distribution. So, what the Big Ten and the Mountain West and the NFL Network have done is of interest to us.
Q: You have time to evaluate the situation.
Swofford: The luxury we have right now is time. Sometimes you want to be out front with things. Other times you want to have the opportunity to evaluate what’s happening and take a look at what it would mean to your particular situation. In this case, I think we’re going to be well served by being able to sit back and watch for a year or two how these things develop and then make a determination as to what it can mean to the ACC. Everybody’s situation is a little bit different. You know, what may be best for the Big Ten may not be best for the ACC or the SEC, and we just need to look at it in terms of what will best serve our future.
Q: ACC Select -- how is that going?
Swofford: I was going to get to that because that’s one of the new forms of distribution that we wanted to really take a look at in partnership with Raycom and Turner. We’re excited about it. It’s gone very well. It’s video streaming that gives people worldwide the opportunity to view real-time ACC events that they cannot get on television. It’s particularly served our Olympic sports well. Those are sports where you have niche viewership and people that are particularly interested in a specific school and a specific sport.
It has also allowed us to give viewership to some football and men’s basketball games that are not televised. There aren’t too many of those in our league, but it does give us that opportunity. The numbers have been very good so far and continue to grow, and I think the public’s knowledge of that opportunity continues to grow. We think, in time, that could be one of the new revenue sources that we were talking about.
Q: An alternative is just to go on CSTV, right?
Swofford: Well, yes, and that’s the thing that we’re continuing to evaluate because there are so many changes in terms of distribution opportunities that it really merits a very thorough evaluation for the future.
Q: The ACC has a longstanding relationship with Lincoln Financial Sports (as a media partner), which is being sold. How does that affect the relationship?
Swofford: I don’t think it will affect us in any way but a positive way. We’ve had a terrific relationship with Jefferson-Pilot and then Lincoln Financial, but they’re being bought by Raycom. Raycom has been in partnership with Jefferson-Pilot and Lincoln Financial for over a quarter of a century, and the ACC has had a relationship with both Jefferson Pilot and Lincoln Financial during that time as well. So, it’s kind of like it was sold within the family in terms of the ACC. So, I don’t see that affecting us in any way that’s negative.
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Swofford In Favor Of Expanding NCAA
Men's Basketball Tournament Field |
Q: You are in favor of expanding the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Swofford: A number of our coaches have expressed an interest in seeing it expanded. We felt like it needed to have a good airing and a good, thorough discussion. It did, and the determination by the NCAA committee was that they were not ready to expand it. I think there are still coaches who would like to see it because it’s gotten tougher and tougher with the parity in college basketball to determine who gets in and who doesn’t.
Q: Should college athletes be paid?
Swofford: No. I think that would create a whole other set of problems for institutions from a tax standpoint and would really take us well beyond the boundaries of differentiating between the collegiate model and the professional model. Certainly the lines are not as clean as they once were years ago between amateurism and professionalism. But there is a collegiate model that is very much tied to higher education, and I think it needs to remain that way.
Q: If you could change one thing about intercollegiate athletics, what would it be?
Swofford: I would enhance the patience level of fans. I think that we are often much too quick to pull the trigger on coaches and the opportunity they have to deal with the program and to truly live the values that I feel like we need to have in higher education and developing young people. We need to be careful about reacting so quickly to the criticisms that are out there when programs don’t win at such a high level. Sometimes that takes time. In a totally different era with Dean Smith at North Carolina basketball, it took some time for the program to develop. But it was being built properly. The environment in which we operate today sometimes doesn’t seem to allow for that, and if I could snap my finger and change something, I think that would be it.
Q: Is there a danger of the business of college sports compromising college sports?
Swofford: I think there’s always that danger. I don’t think that’s a new danger. I think it’s been there from day one. Long ago, it was basically decided that major college intercollegiate athletic programs would have to be financially self-sustaining. So we fundamentally have a system that has to mesh a business side with the educational side, and I think one of our greatest challenges is balancing that. I do believe that can be accomplished and is accomplished at a lot of programs, but it is a continuing challenge.
Q: How does a college athlete strike a balance with all the demands on his time: academics, practice, travel, games, rest, nutrition and so forth?
Swofford: I think a lot of athletes are achievers, and achievers tend to rise to the occasion whether it’s on the field or off it. What we have today that is so much better than it was 20 or 25 years ago are the academic programs that help athletes in tutoring programs and so forth. There’s great access to that kind of assistance. There’s a tremendously enhanced physical development program.
But a lot of it is commitment and time management on the athletes’ part. A lot of it, too, is from the coaches and administration within athletic programs: the emphasis on having the appropriate balance and the importance of developing young people academically and athletically as well as socially. So, having that full development of young people as a part of your value system in intercollegiate athletics, whether you’re a coach or an administrator, is critical in setting the kind of tone that needs to be set that helps a student athlete have a favorable environment, if you will, to be able to meet all of those demands.
Q: What has been the highlight of your tenure as ACC commissioner?
Swofford: The obvious answer would be expansion, because that was a major step for our conference. It took a lot of time and energy on behalf of a lot of people. Personally, the thing I am most proud of over the first decade has been the maintenance and, I believe, even the enhancement of our culture in the ACC. If you have the right kind of culture, you can address whatever issues come before you in a collective manner. And a conference is most definitely a collective effort because it’s only as strong as the institutions that [comprise it] and their relationships with each other. That culture of trust and cooperation is something our league has had for a long time. And with our expansion I think it’s stronger than ever.
Q: Any consideration to the road not taken?
Swofford: No. You know, I’ve been a part of this league since I was 18 years old and was a student-athlete in this conference. To have the opportunity to work at the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina, and coming in to this job, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My focus was always on intercollegiate athletics, having been in it since 1973 as an administrator. It’s what I wanted to do, and I’ve been fortunate to have been given opportunities to be in this profession. I believe in college athletics and being involved in the continued development of young people.
