Greensboro to host ACC Swimming & Diving Championships for next 7 seasons, through 2022

The Atlantic Coast Conference has announced a seven-year deal with the Greensboro Aquatic Center that will bring the men’s and women’s ACC Championships to Greensboro for the next 7 seasons.

The ACC included the information in an all-sports announcement of the conference championship hosts for all of next season’s sports. You can read that announcement here.

Georgia Tech hosted the conference championships this past season and will be the last ACC school to host the event through at least 2022, provided Greensboro and the conference both stick to the current plan.

Greensboro as a facility has plenty of experience hosting major college meets. This past season, it housed the NCAA Women’s Championships in Division I, a meet that saw multiple NCAA and American records fall.

The ACC typically runs its championships between two weeks. The women’s ACC Swimming & Diving Championships happen the first week (in 2016, it will be February 17-20) along with men’s diving. A week later, the men’s swimming championships take place – in 2016, that meet will be February 24-27.

The 7-year deal with Greensboro does set up a unique situation for 2016, though. Georgia Tech is slated to host both men’s and women’s NCAAs, but will not host their own conference championship meet. Typically, when a school earns a bid to host NCAAs, the conference will host its championship meet at that pool as well, to give swimmers a chance to get familiar with the facility before nationals.

Based on that precedent, even if other ACC schools earn bids to host NCAAs down the road, it would appear the ACC Championships will remain at Greensboro.

The ACC Championships are becoming one of the more exciting conference championship meets in the nation in both genders. The ACC women return a pair of national record-setters in Louisville’s Kelsi Worrell (American record 100 fly) and Virginia’s Leah Smith (NCAA record 500 free). The NC State men are one of the fastest-rising teams in the nation and won their first ACC title in years this past season.