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Andrea Adelson, ESPN Senior Writer
AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — When the annual ACC spring meetings begin Monday, there will be no way to avoid what has become the story overshadowing the conference: Its long-term future.
The ACC, Clemson and Florida State are embroiled in lawsuits over the grant of rights agreement that ostensibly keeps ACC schools in a TV contract through 2036 — an agreement those two schools argue is no longer financially competitive and that has their fans, according to a FOIA request made by ESPN, demanding they leave the league.
Clemson and Florida State will be at the meetings, participating in the league agenda. That agenda is expected to include discussions about the expanded College Football Playoff and resulting revenue distribution, a pending $2.7 billion settlement in antitrust cases involving the NCAA and ways to enhance revenue streams for the ACC.
The agenda is not expected to include discussions about the lawsuits. After all, Clemson and Florida State remain ACC members and consistently have been on league calls and Zooms since their lawsuits were filed. They have all tried to operate as if it is business as usual, but nothing has been normal over the past 18 months.
During spring meetings last year it was revealed seven schools — including Clemson and Florida State — had studied the grant of rights to determine a path forward and discussed potential exit strategies. That put the league on notice. Seven months later, the ACC and Florida State sued each other. This past March, Clemson and the ACC went to court.
Ahead of this year’s meetings, let’s look at how we got here and what comes next.
The lawsuits
ESPN filed a public records request to Florida State seeking emails and texts between Dec. 3 and Dec. 22 to determine how and when school officials decided to move forward with legal action. What came back were emails from angry fans, begging Florida State athletic director Michael Alford and university president Richard McCullough to do something.
The first emails started coming in Dec. 3, the same day the Seminoles became the first undefeated Power 5 school left out of the four-team College Football Playoff that began in 2014. For months, Florida State had expressed its dissatisfaction with the ACC over an impending revenue gap with the SEC and Big Ten, a gap Alford estimated would reach $30 million annually.
The previous August, the Florida State board of trustees met to discuss its long-term future. Trustee Justin Roth asked for an exit plan to leave the ACC by August 2024. Florida State lawyers then began coming up with a legal strategy to challenge the grant of rights, which transfers ownership of media rights from the school to the ACC and runs through 2036.
The playoff snub seemed to crystallize what had to be done. Less than an hour after the playoff announcement, a Florida State fan wrote in an email to Alford, “We must get out of the ACC or we are officially dead as a college football program … The time is now. We must do whatever it takes to get out. We beg of you to end this charade.”
Another email came in at roughly the same time, subject line “LEAVE THE ACC NOW”:
“We get no respect in this conference
We get no money in this conference
WHY ARE WE STILL HERE?”
On Dec. 4, one Seminole booster, whose name was redacted, wrote to Alford in response to a distribution list email in which he asked fans to redirect their “passion and support” and attend the Orange Bowl against Georgia.
“Really? Just move on like nothing just happened. Just spend thousands more dollars after getting slapped in the face … by an incompetent, low football IQ committee? No thanks. … We stuck with FSU through the 2015-2020 debacle only to have our players, coaches, Boosters, Administration and fans humiliated in front of the whole country. You and the FSU President need to stand up more publicly and find a way to start moving us out of the ACC. Maybe ask fans to divert Stadium renovation dollars to conference realignment costs as a small help. I know the cost of moving is monumental but the long term cost of not moving ASAP, may be more, and even permanent.”
Through the FOIA request, the only email that came back between Alford, McCullough and board of trustees chair Peter Collins regarding the school’s future plans was dated Dec. 21. Earlier that day, Florida State had announced it would hold a special board meeting Dec. 22 to discuss legal matters related to the athletic department.
In two emails Dec. 21, Alford sent Collins a list of questions he could be asked at the board meeting. Alford wrote:
How confident should we be about this when there has been no known legal challenge to a grant of rights.
Why should we be confident in the correct outcome?
Have we TRULY exhausted EVERY possible avenue for discussion of a tenable solution short of legal action?
On Dec. 22, the Florida State board voted to sue the ACC in Leon County, Florida, seeking to void the grant of rights and withdrawal fee as “unreasonable restraints of trade in the state of Florida and not enforceable in their entirety against Florida State.”
In his comments to the board, Collins and McCullough told the board they felt they had, indeed, exhausted every possible option and had no choice but to file a lawsuit. “These things are timely and you can’t wish and hope that somehow they’ll get fixed in the next year two, three, four, five. By that time, I don’t think that we’ll be competitive,” McCullough said.
The same day, it became publicly known the ACC decided to file a lawsuit in North Carolina first to defend the grant of rights and league members on Dec. 21.
At the time, there was rampant speculation that Clemson would be next to file. Both schools had been described as being in “lockstep” with each other, sharing similar concerns about their long-term futures in a conference that could not keep up financially. The key difference between the two, as one person close to the situation described it, was the playoff snub.
Clemson ultimately filed its lawsuit three months later in March, in South Carolina. As a result, the ACC sued Clemson in North Carolina, and argued in its suit that Clemson indicated a “desire to work with the conference” regarding its own membership and “requested confidentiality and protections that the ACC would not file a lawsuit against it.”
Since then, Clemson has filed an amended complaint seeking damages, as the school accused the league of “slander of title,” arguing the ACC was able to strengthen its position through the grant of rights, while diminishing Clemson’s.
Two other schools, Miami and North Carolina, had been proactively looking at the grant of rights with the same urgency as Clemson and Florida State at this time last year. But at this point, Miami has no plans to pursue the same legal strategy. Athletic director Dan Radakovich told a local radio station several months ago, “Here at the University of Miami we are incredibly solid with the ACC.”
North Carolina is in a trickier situation. UNC board chair John Preyer has expressed a desire to weigh all options, but no action has been taken. It should be noted UNC has an interim chancellor, Lee H. Roberts, that makes it more challenging to take action. Further complicating matters, the UNC system board of governors in February passed a policy that requires its public schools to gain approval to move conferences from the board and the UNC system president.
Where do all the lawsuits stand?
There are five total lawsuits ongoing: the ACC vs. Clemson; the ACC vs. Florida State; Clemson vs. the ACC; Florida State vs. the ACC, plus a lawsuit Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed against the ACC in April, seeking to make public the ESPN-ACC television contract as part of Florida State’s case.
The judge in Clemson’s case in South Carolina ruled this month that the ACC must provide an unredacted copy of the ESPN contract to Clemson, though it will remain confidential and can be used only as part of the case.
In North Carolina, the next court hearing in the ACC’s case against Clemson is scheduled for July 2. Clemson recently filed a motion to dismiss the case. In the ACC’s case against Florida State, Judge Louis Bledsoe denied its motion to dismiss. Florida State has said it will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, and no court date has been set.
In South Carolina, the ACC filed a motion to dismiss the case on May 7. In Florida, Cooper referred the ACC and Florida State to mediation. The two sides have been unable to agree on a mediator, so Cooper granted an extension until May 31 to choose one.
The bottom line is all parties expected a protracted legal battle to play itself out, and there is no incentive — at least at the moment — to negotiate a settlement or resolution.
So what about this year’s meetings?
At last year’s spring meetings there were fireworks on the first day after it was revealed publicly that seven schools had conducted discussions about the future of the conference. Those not involved in the discussions felt blindsided. So did ACC commissioner Jim Phillips. One AD described the tenor as an “airing of grievances.”
Once they cleared the air, they were able to come to an agreement on “success initiatives” to reward on-field and on-court success — pushed forward largely by Alford, as a way to acknowledge Florida State’s concerns over the widening revenue gap. Phillips presented a unified front when the meetings wrapped, saying he believed, “We’re all in this together.”
Now, a year later, Clemson, Florida State and the ACC are in a fight for their own long-term futures. Nobody knows how their legal battles will play out, but they still have to find a way to work together. Phillips has pledged to continue to fully support Clemson and Florida State athletes for as long as they remain conference members.
With the impending antitrust case settlements and a potential framework for a new collegiate model that would share revenue with student-athletes, it’s more imperative than ever to find more revenue streams for the ACC. This is especially true following the recent news that payouts from the newly expanded CFP will not be distributed evenly, leaving the ACC behind the SEC and Big Ten once again — further proving that a “Power 2” exists.
Adding to the dynamic will be the presence of new members Stanford, Cal and SMU — three schools added last fall to help shore up the ACC long term. The league will continue to move forward discussing league business and will celebrate the success stories and team championships won this athletic season during a reception Tuesday night — all while uncertainty hangs in the background.