RALEIGH, N.C. — Any new commissioner, especially one coming from outside the ACC, was going to want to at least take a look at moving the conference office out of Greensboro. It's a fair and rational question to ask.
There's another fair question: Does it even matter where the office physically is, when almost all of the conference's meetings are held elsewhere or virtually?
Actually, it does. Or it should, anyway.
There's a reason the ACC has stayed in Greensboro for seven decades when it had every opportunity to move to Charlotte, or Wilmington, or anywhere else over the years. It's the biggest show in town, and as the decline of the textile and tobacco industries have taken their toll on the Triad, the ACC has become an increasingly important financial and emotional keystone — and the ACC benefits from that status, from an overwhelmingly supportive business and political establishment.
The reverse is true as well. Over two decades of fundamental change to the ACC's business model and membership, being rooted in Greensboro has served as a physical reminder of what the league once was and what made it great in the first place. The days of John Swofford briefing reporters on the day's expansion developments in the parking lot may be long over — as are, not coincidentally, the days when almost the entire ACC was within commuting distance of that parking lot — but Greensboro still sits smack in the middle of the area codes where the ACC matters most.
Try convincing someone from Syracuse or Notre Dame of that, though. They hear Greensboro and they whisper, as Jim Boeheim said out loud, of strip malls and chain restaurants. The lack of direct flights to GSO doesn't help the small-town aura, either. It's part of a bigger, global issue: The expansion arrivals have yet to demonstrate they see any benefit in maintaining any of the traditions of the old ACC, even as they continue to benefit from them. Meanwhile, there's a new generation of leaders at the legacy ACC schools who may see the value in a more prestigious address but not the value of staying in Greensboro.
It's no coincidence the decision to put this particular issue up for specific examination came at the conclusion of new commissioner Jim Phillips' listening tour of all 15 schools. He picked up what some of them were putting down. Phillips saying that the ACC has a "fiduciary responsibility" to determine whether the office should stay in Greensboro is speaking their language.
They are, of course, wrong about Greensboro: There's no defined amount of time one has to spend in and around Greensboro to understand why and how the ACC office belongs there, and why its presence there is beneficial to the ACC at large. But it's not a realization that dawns immediately.
At the minimum it takes years to see how Greensboro is collectively loyal, not to any of the schools, but to the ACC itself, and how being the only show in town gives the league a foundation in both the past and the future it wouldn't have anywhere else, one that it desperately needs as other aspects of its unique personality become watered down with expansion and ESPN's growing influence.
The ACC has already lived this as a cautionary tale. Maybe we'll say the same thing about the ACC tournament in Brooklyn someday, that it took a few decades to see its value.
Doubtful.
That was another sop to the Big East schools that hasn't worked out as planned, a major event dropped into a city that didn't even notice it was there, disappearing into the New York maelstrom like a mosquito in a hurricane.
The alleged media capital of the world paid attention to the ACC only when a potential Knicks draft pick was playing — but nevertheless the ACC will return to Brooklyn in March. The basketball tournament, an annual ritual so important to what makes the ACC the ACC — or what made the ACC the ACC — deserves better.
So, for that matter, does the ACC office. If Phillips does decide to pack up and move, it will inevitably be to somewhere that has bigger and better things going on. That's the point: To be closer to sponsors (and potential sponsors) in a bigger media market. To be closer to the money. To be closer to the action.
The tournament in Brooklyn is a great example that it doesn't necessarily work that way.
Still, Charlotte is the early favorite, because of its hub airport and central location and connection to ESPN. It's already the site of most ACC media events and the football title game. As a media market, though, it's not in the same league as Atlanta or New York or Washington — and if being in the heart of old ACC country is a symbolic issue for the Big East schools, Charlotte won't fix that.
Nor would Raleigh, as clever and terrific a new location as the Triangle would be, combining the infrastructure of a bigger city and tech nexus with some of Greensboro's historic reverence for the ACC. Alas, the Triangle probably won't even be considered.
Elsewhere, in top-10 media markets like Atlanta or Washington, the ACC would quickly be lost in the shuffle, swallowed up in the latest developments with the Falcons' defensive-line depth or whatever. And anywhere north of DC? Might as well rebrand as the New Old Big East at that point, because you'd be replacing part of what's left of the ACC's unique character with some anodyne corporate replica.
There are other valid questions here, too: What financial benefit would the ACC actually derive from moving from a building it wholly owns to somewhere it would have to lease office space, even subsidized?
Meanwhile, the SEC seems to be managing just fine in Birmingham, a smaller media market than Greensboro, instead of Atlanta or New Orleans or some other big city in its footprint.
There's an old saying that consultants are hired to provide justification for decisions already made. The perception of Greensboro was going to weigh heavily on any newcomer walking into the commissioner's job, and moving the conference office to a bigger city like Charlotte or Washington will be seen as a boon to the league's prestige, even if it ends up costing money and delivering no tangible benefits.
In an industry driven too often by perception, it's a tantalizing prospect, but it's fool's gold.
There are a lot of things Phillips needs to change about the ACC. This isn't one of them.
