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| Association | NCAA |
|---|---|
| Founded | May 8, 1953 |
| Commissioner | James J. Phillips (since February 1, 2021) |
| Sports fielded |
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| Division | Division I |
| Subdivision | FBS |
| No. of teams | 16 (18 on August 2, 2024) |
| Headquarters | Charlotte, North Carolina |
| Region | |
| Official website | theacc |
| Locations | |
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The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's sixteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)'s Division I. ACC football teams compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. The ACC sponsors competition in twenty-seven sports with many of its member institutions held in high regard nationally. Current members of the conference are: Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, SMU, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest.
ACC teams and athletes have claimed dozens of national championships in multiple sports throughout the conference's history. Generally, the ACC's top athletes and teams in any particular sport in a given year are considered to be among the top collegiate competitors in the nation. Additionally, the conference enjoys extensive media coverage. With the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the ACC is one of the "Power Five" conferences with a contractual tie-in to a New Year's Six bowl game in the sport of football.
The ACC was founded on May 8, 1953, by seven universities located in the South Atlantic States, with the University of Virginia joining in early December 1953 to bring the membership to eight.[2] The loss of South Carolina in 1971 dropped membership to seven, while the addition of Georgia Tech in 1979 for non-football sports and 1983 for football brought it back to eight, and Florida State's arrival in 1991 for non-football sports and 1992 for football increased the membership to nine. Since 2000, with the widespread reorganization of the NCAA, seven additional schools have joined, and one original member (Maryland) has left to bring it to the current membership of 15 schools. The additions in recent years extended the conference's footprint into the Northeast and Midwest.
On September 1, 2023, ACC presidents and chancellors voted to add University of California, Berkeley, Southern Methodist University, and Stanford University starting in the 2024–25 school year.[3]
Member universities
Current members
The ACC has 16 member institutions from 11 states. Listed in alphabetical order, these 11 states within the ACC's geographical footprint are Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. The geographic domain of the conference is predominantly within the Southern and Northeastern United States along the US Atlantic coast and stretches from Florida in the south to New York in the north and from Texas in the west to Massachusetts farthest east.
When Notre Dame joined the ACC, it chose to remain a football independent. However, its football team established a special scheduling arrangement with the ACC to play a rotating selection of five ACC football teams per season. For the 2020 season, due largely to the suspension of most non-conference games by other Power Five conferences due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the ACC reached an agreement to allow Notre Dame to play a full, 10-game conference schedule and be eligible to play for the ACC championship.[4]
Since July 1, 2024, the 16 members of the ACC are: