AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — In each of the past three years, the ACC’s annual spring meetings ended with familiar refrains and messaging — of hope; of strength; of maintaining its place in the hierarchy of college athletics — only for massive change to imperil the conference in the months to follow. It has become a rite of summer in college sports, one that has the ACC fighting for its long term survival and relevance.
Before everything changed, the league’s status as a power conference appeared secure. Its annual May meetings, at an Amelia Island Ritz-Carlton with endless views of sand dunes and crashing waves, came and went without all that much stress. It wasn’t all that long ago when the most pressing issue at those meetings was the prospect of eliminating football divisions.
And before that, the impending arrival of the ACC Network. Then came the dominoes.