Q. Your 23rd year as the commissioner showing up to media days like this, and obviously several more as an athletic director, acting athletic director. Does this ever get old for you?
JOHN SWOFFORD: No, no it doesn't. I think as long as you have the passion and the energy and you're a part of a great league, as I'm fortunate enough to be, you've got great schools and a lot of fan interest, and there's always something else to do, there's always a what's next. And so, no, this doesn't get old. Privileged to be here.
Q. Let's talk about what's next. It's arrived already here. Couple months ago we launched the ACCN, and it's been so far a very fun experience, and I think -- I hope we've delivered a worthwhile product. For somebody like you, this has been 20 years in the making. This has been a vision of yours and to see it come to fruition. And the first few months in, how do you feel about the product and what we've been able to do?
JOHN SWOFFORD: I feel great about it. It's nice to be in front of this group, and there's some people out there that have heard me talk about this subject and say nothing, numerous years when we were leading in and the questions were: Are you going to get there; are you going to have a network; et cetera?
So it's good to be able to have it as a reality, and I couldn't be more pleased, our league couldn't be more pleased with where we are. Tremendous startup in every respect, whether it's the talent, whether it's the production, the storytelling. The distribution is beyond expectations at the beginning. So in terms of startups, it's been an extraordinarily successful one.
Q. As we talk about extraordinary, how about the product on the playing field, with these teams within the conference? The overall state of the conference, let's talk about that. You've got Clemson, who won a national championship. Virginia men's basketball won a national championship. Men and women's soccer at, Virginia currently stand at number one. How pleased are you with the performance of the student-athletes and just where we are as a conference?
JOHN SWOFFORD: Extremely. We're on a run as a league that our league has seldom seen when you look at the entire picture and the competitiveness of the league. And obviously that's an important aspect of it. And I'm going to pull out some notes here because --
Q. A lot of numbers?
JOHN SWOFFORD: I don't want to get these wrong. Since 2015, seven national championships in football, men's basketball, women's basketball and baseball -- by six different institutions.
And I think that says an awful lot about the Atlantic Coast Conference and what our schools, our programs are able to do competitively in recent years.
And obviously that's been tremendously helpful leading into the network and its launch. That's the most of any conference in those four sports.
Two of the last three years our teams have been able to win both the football and men's basketball national championships in the same year. That doesn't happen very often in our league, nor does it happen very often in anybody's league.
So tremendous from that standpoint. Our teams have won three of the last five men's basketball national championships, three of the last six football national championships.
In the last 43 years, Jordan, our teams have been to 31 -- we've had at least one team in 31 of the last 43 Final Fours. From the basketball standpoint, you talk about success and consistency, that's hard to top.
So we're spoiled from that standpoint, from a basketball standpoint. But that's okay. It's nice to have those expectations.
Currently -- and you go back in Olympic sports and considering them combined with the two revenue sports I was talking about, 24 national titles in the last five years, six national championships last year.
And currently, bringing us up to date, this fall we've had 10 of our teams ranked No. 1 in the nation in their respective sports. Currently there are five because eventually we start playing each other. So they don't all stay there.
So it's been just a tremendous run, competitively that I think has us in a great place.
You mentioned the lead-up to being in a position to do the network. And that did start a long time ago. It really goes back to the initial efforts and decisions within our league to expand and to bring in the schools that we've brought in, going from nine to 12 then to 14 and then to 15.
And all of that was with a purpose in mind. That was to put us in the best position that we could possibly be in to have the opportunities that we felt like our league needed to have and must have to competitively continue to be one of the premier conferences in the country.
And fortunately that put us in a position of maximizing media opportunities and other opportunities. We're now a league that is the largest in the country in terms of the geographic footprint of our peer conferences, with the most television sets of our peer conferences, and with the greatest population of our peer conferences. And the population base is growing.
So when you combine the competitiveness with those decisions that have put us in a really good marketplace with the quality of our schools, academically -- because if you look at the academic performance of our athletes, we lead our peer conferences every year on just about any analysis that you could put together -- and the quality collectively of the 15 institutions is the highest rated of any of our peer conferences, too.
So, when you put those three things together, I think the league is just in a tremendous place for the long term, long-term future. The grant of rights is there. The 15 schools are committed to each other through 2036 at least.
And so we know who we are now. We know who we will be for the longer term future. So I think we're in a great place.
JOHN SWOFFORD: No, no it doesn't. I think as long as you have the passion and the energy and you're a part of a great league, as I'm fortunate enough to be, you've got great schools and a lot of fan interest, and there's always something else to do, there's always a what's next. And so, no, this doesn't get old. Privileged to be here.
Q. Let's talk about what's next. It's arrived already here. Couple months ago we launched the ACCN, and it's been so far a very fun experience, and I think -- I hope we've delivered a worthwhile product. For somebody like you, this has been 20 years in the making. This has been a vision of yours and to see it come to fruition. And the first few months in, how do you feel about the product and what we've been able to do?
JOHN SWOFFORD: I feel great about it. It's nice to be in front of this group, and there's some people out there that have heard me talk about this subject and say nothing, numerous years when we were leading in and the questions were: Are you going to get there; are you going to have a network; et cetera?
So it's good to be able to have it as a reality, and I couldn't be more pleased, our league couldn't be more pleased with where we are. Tremendous startup in every respect, whether it's the talent, whether it's the production, the storytelling. The distribution is beyond expectations at the beginning. So in terms of startups, it's been an extraordinarily successful one.
Q. As we talk about extraordinary, how about the product on the playing field, with these teams within the conference? The overall state of the conference, let's talk about that. You've got Clemson, who won a national championship. Virginia men's basketball won a national championship. Men and women's soccer at, Virginia currently stand at number one. How pleased are you with the performance of the student-athletes and just where we are as a conference?
JOHN SWOFFORD: Extremely. We're on a run as a league that our league has seldom seen when you look at the entire picture and the competitiveness of the league. And obviously that's an important aspect of it. And I'm going to pull out some notes here because --
Q. A lot of numbers?
JOHN SWOFFORD: I don't want to get these wrong. Since 2015, seven national championships in football, men's basketball, women's basketball and baseball -- by six different institutions.
And I think that says an awful lot about the Atlantic Coast Conference and what our schools, our programs are able to do competitively in recent years.
And obviously that's been tremendously helpful leading into the network and its launch. That's the most of any conference in those four sports.
Two of the last three years our teams have been able to win both the football and men's basketball national championships in the same year. That doesn't happen very often in our league, nor does it happen very often in anybody's league.
So tremendous from that standpoint. Our teams have won three of the last five men's basketball national championships, three of the last six football national championships.
In the last 43 years, Jordan, our teams have been to 31 -- we've had at least one team in 31 of the last 43 Final Fours. From the basketball standpoint, you talk about success and consistency, that's hard to top.
So we're spoiled from that standpoint, from a basketball standpoint. But that's okay. It's nice to have those expectations.
Currently -- and you go back in Olympic sports and considering them combined with the two revenue sports I was talking about, 24 national titles in the last five years, six national championships last year.
And currently, bringing us up to date, this fall we've had 10 of our teams ranked No. 1 in the nation in their respective sports. Currently there are five because eventually we start playing each other. So they don't all stay there.
So it's been just a tremendous run, competitively that I think has us in a great place.
You mentioned the lead-up to being in a position to do the network. And that did start a long time ago. It really goes back to the initial efforts and decisions within our league to expand and to bring in the schools that we've brought in, going from nine to 12 then to 14 and then to 15.
And all of that was with a purpose in mind. That was to put us in the best position that we could possibly be in to have the opportunities that we felt like our league needed to have and must have to competitively continue to be one of the premier conferences in the country.
And fortunately that put us in a position of maximizing media opportunities and other opportunities. We're now a league that is the largest in the country in terms of the geographic footprint of our peer conferences, with the most television sets of our peer conferences, and with the greatest population of our peer conferences. And the population base is growing.
So when you combine the competitiveness with those decisions that have put us in a really good marketplace with the quality of our schools, academically -- because if you look at the academic performance of our athletes, we lead our peer conferences every year on just about any analysis that you could put together -- and the quality collectively of the 15 institutions is the highest rated of any of our peer conferences, too.
So, when you put those three things together, I think the league is just in a tremendous place for the long term, long-term future. The grant of rights is there. The 15 schools are committed to each other through 2036 at least.
And so we know who we are now. We know who we will be for the longer term future. So I think we're in a great place.
