Aspects of managing acknowledgment transmissions from multicast group members of a multicast group within a wireless communications network are disclosed. An access network transmits an announce message announcing a multicast session to a plurality of access terminals. One of the plurality of access terminals (i.e., a first responder) sends a BCMCSFlowRegistration message and an announce acknowledgment (ACK) message to the access network. In an example, the BCMCSFlowRegistration message and announce ACK message are sent within the same access probe on a reverse link access channel. Next, the access network sends, in response to the received BCMCSFlowRegistration message, a suppression message to request access terminals not to send announce acknowledgment messages for the announced multicast session. Alternatively, an application server sends the suppression message in response to the received announce ACK message. In either scenario, the access terminals receiving the suppression message suppress transmission of subsequent announce ACK messages.