Bubba Cunningham, the athletic director for North Carolina, sat down in a recent interview to talk about the chatter surrounding the ACC this past week. In particular, that chatter detailed a group of ACC schools labeled the “Magnificent 7” per reports with an eye on trying to leave the conference.

In an interview for College Sports on SiriusXM, Cunningham explained why he didn’t believe the actions of the group were controversial. He admitted the labeling of the group set off a firestorm but he feels the group was only doing what every school in the country is doing when it comes to examining ways to improve revenue streams.

“Every school in the country’s talking about how do we get better, how do we generate more revenue. And it happened to be that a group of us were together,” Cunningham explained. “Now, labeling it that way (as the Magnificent 7) certainly set off the firestorm. The activity, I don’t think anybody thought much about that because that’s what we’re all doing, but the label certainly created a lot of controversy.”

Cunningham also claims the group was simply trying to build consensus on an issue, something that happens on a regular basis over multiple issues.

“What you’re trying to do is build consensus on a similar position. So the one thing we’ve talked about very publicly is a different payout, differential revenue sharing, so you do have to garner support for stuff like that,” said Cunningham. “You do have to sort of build a coalition of decision-makers… Those little groups of activities have happened all the time.”