The ACC will explore moving its headquarters from Greensboro as part of a comprehensive review of league operations, according to a letter from new ACC commissioner Jim Phillips to the 15 member schools and the city of Greensboro.
The league has been headquartered in Greensboro since it was founded at Sedgefield Country Club in 1953, and owns its own building — just off ACC Lane — next to the Grandover Resort. In the letter, Phillips said the ACC has a “fiduciary responsibility to ensure that remaining headquartered in Greensboro is what is in the best long-term interests of the Conference.”
The potential move was first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“Let me be very clear — there is no imminent decision on a possible relocation of our Conference office,” Phillips wrote. “We are simply doing our due diligence as we enter a new chapter in our storied history. This is part of our responsibility as we undertake a holistic review and assessment of the ACC.”
Phillips hired former Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg to review the location of the conference office as part of a “thorough review” of finances, comparisons to other conferences and the governance model expected to take four months.
The ACC moved to its current location in December 1996 but had been in Greensboro since the conference first established an office in the old King Cotton Hotel in 1954 under its first commissioner, Jim Weaver. The ACC considered moving to Charlotte under Gene Corrigan in the mid 1990s but decided to stay in Greensboro.
“I remember when Dad took over the job,” N.C. State athletics director Boo Corrigan, Gene Corrigan’s son, told The News & Observer on Thursday night. “The office was in a strip mall off Battleground Avenue. It was such a different world. So much has changed in college athletics. John Swofford did an outstanding job for 20-plus years. When someone new comes in, you have an opportunity to look at everything.”
Potential options for a relocated office within the ACC footprint include Charlotte, where ESPN has a production facility, Washington and Atlanta.
Greensboro has long been a spiritual home for the ACC — especially the basketball tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum — but the expanded league may have outgrown the city’s infrastructure, most notably Piedmont Triad International Airport.
“Sedgefield will always be the birthplace of the ACC,” Boo Corrigan said. “That’s never going to go away.”
Attempts to reach Greensboro mayor Nancy Vaughan were not immediately successful. Greensboro Sports Foundation executive director Rob Goodman declined to comment.
Duke president Vince Price, who chairs the ACC Board of Directors, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that “as a resident of North Carolina, I have my own personal views about the desirability of recognizing that traditional heart of the conference being here in this region, and I know that certainly will be among the factors we consider.”
Reached Thursday night, Duke spokesman Michael Schoenfeld said Price had no further comment beyond that.
