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FSU-ACC lawsuit heads to Florida court. Here's everything you need to know about the case
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- FSU-ACC lawsuit heads to Florida court. Here's everything you need to know about the case
Florida State vs. the ACC heads to Florida court Tuesday. Will this lead to FSU finally leaving for the Big Ten or SEC ?
It's been a tumultuous year in what had already been a rocky relationship. The Seminoles , upset with the conference and its money issues for years, sued the ACC in December over its media rights deal and the exorbitant penalty they said it would cost to jump ship. The league countersued in North Carolina, where a judge ruled last week that the case could proceed .
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Now with Clemson and ESPN joining the fray, the FSU-ACC fight heads to Leon County court . Here's what you need to know about the ongoing legal case and what it means for college football.
FSU vs. ACC: The latest updates and analysis from first hearing in Florida court
Why is FSU leaving the ACC?
For years, Florida State leaders have been vocal in their displeasure over the conference's revenue sharing plan. Most complaints circle around the ACC's TV contract with ESPN, which extends through 2036 even as the network makes substantial cuts . The Big Ten signed a seven-year, $8 billion deal to air games between Fox, CBS and NBC that went into effect last season. For the 2024 season, the SEC starts a 10-year, $3 billion deal to move from CBS to ESPN .
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Those deals include huge payouts for the schools. Florida coach Billy Napier said projections show each SEC school would get millions more from the new deal, rising from $55 million to potentially more than $70 million . FSU athletic director Michael Alford said Big Ten schools will receive about $80 million each year from its TV contract, whereas FSU currently receives $42 million .
Are Florida State and Clemson leaving the ACC? Are they joining the Big Ten?
The final straw for Florida State might have been the FSU football team going undefeated and winning the ACC championship but still being left out of the College Football Playoff. Outrage from all over Florida ( and beyond ) started immediately after the CFP announcement December 3, and on December 22, the FSU Board of Trustees voted to sue the conference over its media right deal.
Clemson entered the mix in March with its own lawsuit against the ACC. Both schools show intent on exiting the ACC, with FSU stating it outright in a filing March 27. While the two could leap to either the Big Ten or the ACC, it's the Big Ten that seems to constantly circulate in the rumor mill for the Seminoles. Nothing is official yet, however.
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Is FSU suing ACC over exit fee?
FSU's biggest contention with the conference is over its grant of rights , the media deal that all schools within a conference have to sign. The restrictive deal lasts until 2036, and the proceeds Florida State gets from it pales in comparison to its rivals in the Big Ten and SEC after their latest blockbuster TV deals.
By signing the grant of rights in 2013, schools agreed to transfer their media rights through the end of the contract, regardless of whether they are still in the ACC. "That means FSU or any other school looking to jump ship would not receive annual revenue distributions from the ACC or their new conference for more than a decade," explained Brooks Holton of the Louisville Courier-Journal .
The school amended its lawsuit January 29, alleging former ACC commissioner John Swofford cost member schools $82 million per year because of the conference's deal with regional sports network Raycom, for which his son Chad Swofford is an executive. John Swofford played a key role in launching the ACC Network in 2019.
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How much will it cost Florida State to leave the ACC?
FSU said when it announced its lawsuit that breaking the grant of rights deal would cost $572 million . Here's what Florida State's lawyers said they were charging about the contract:
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It violates Florida law.
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There's an unenforceable penalty on the grant of rights penalty. Ashburn said the court can invalidate the fee or set a new, smaller fee for an exit.
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It's a breach of contract. "So first and foremost, the ACC has failed to appropriately give FSU the value of its athletic program media rights back being diluted those agreements those rights going forward," Ashburn said.
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It breaches fiduciary duty. "It tracks in many respects the contractual obligations and the ACC does have fiduciary duties to its members."
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There's a fundamental failure of contractual purpose.
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There's unconscionability and violation of public policy.
Who is the judge overseeing FSU-ACC lawsuit in Florida?
Circuit Judge John C. Cooper will be presiding over the Florida State vs. ACC lawsuit in Leon County court. In 2021, Cooper ruled against Gov. Ron DeSantis' executive order that public schools could not mandate masks during the COVID pandemic, a decision later overturned by an appellate court.
Cooper earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Florida State in the 1970s.
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What part does ESPN play in the FSU vs. ACC lawsuit?
The day before FSU announced its lawsuit in Leon County, the ACC filed its own in Charlotte, North Carolina. On February 22, ESPN filed a motion of support for the conference in that case, saying the grant of right deal contains "textbook trade secrets" and that publicly disclosing the terms of the media deal would be "destabilizing and harmful."
ESPN came out hot, calling itself "the Worldwide Leader in Sports" in the opening sentence and claiming the details of the agreement between the network and the ACC should remain sealed. FSU has argued that the figures should be released as it tries to break off the deal set to expire in 2036.
What happened with the FSU-ACC lawsuit in North Carolina?
The ACC's lawsuit filed December 21 against FSU claims that "Florida State explicitly agreed that it would not 'take any action, or permit any action to be taken by others subject to its control ... that would affect the validity and enforcement' of the Grant of Rights." Florida State filed a motion to dismiss the case , saying the ACC's suit was premature and did not come with the required vote of member schools.
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On Thursday, April 4, Judge Louis A. Bledsoe ruled the North Carolina case could proceed and also denied FSU's motion to stay the case. He did rule in favor of FSU on one count, dismissing the ACC's claims that the school breached its fiduciary duties to the conference.
Why is Clemson leaving the ACC?
On March 19, Clemson filed its own lawsuit against the ACC in Pickens County, South Carolina, taking aim at the ACC's claim that it "irrevocably owns the media rights of member institutions to home games played through 2036, even if an institution ceases to being a member" and "paying an exorbitant $140 million penalty to leave the conference, where members owe the conference fiduciary duties."
The ACC countersued Clemson the following day in North Carolina, similar to what happened in the FSU case. The Clemson-ACC case remains on hold, likely until Florida State's lawsuit plays out.
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When can Florida State leave the ACC?
That depends on the outcome of the dueling cases in Florida and North Carolina. If FSU can get out of the grant of rights deal without penalty, the Seminoles could start immediately looking for a new conference, either the Big Ten or SEC.
That could happen as early as 2025 if everything goes quickly enough. Last year, a host of teams announced they would leave the Pac-12 for various conferences, including Stanford and California to the ACC. Those changes are set to take effect August 1, 2024.
When did FSU join the ACC?
Florida State was an independent team until 1990, when it agreed to become the ninth school to join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Under coach Bobby Bowden, the FSU football team instantly became the class of the ACC, which until then had been known as strictly a basketball conference.
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In 1992, their first season as an official member, the Seminoles went 11-1 and finished No. 2 in the AP poll. The following season, they went 12-1 and won the national championship. Florida State won its first 29 conference games, finally falling at Virginia on Nov. 2, 1995.
Why did FSU join the ACC? Why didn't Florida State join the SEC?
For decades before joining the ACC, Florida State had wanted to join the college football powerhouse known as the Southeastern Conference. In 1990, it finally had its chance during a major nationwide upheaval across the college football landscape. Penn State became the 11th school in the Big Ten; the Southwest Conference was years away from merging with the Big 8 to form the Big 12; and the ACC, SEC and Big East were all looking to add teams, as well.
But FSU opted instead for the ACC. The official reason may have been academics, but Bobby Bowden told Paul Finebaum in 2015 that he felt "it was too difficult to win through the SEC to win a national championship." He also said to 247Sports in 2019 that he thought FSU would choose the SEC but "the administration — the president and others — wanted the ACC, which really was better for us. It would have been hard wading through that SEC.
In-state rival Miami would then join the Big East before joining the Seminoles in the ACC for the 2004 season.
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Tallahassee Democrat sports editor Jim Henry and Florida State reporter Ehsan Kassim contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: FSU vs ACC lawsuit: Why Florida State is suing to leave conference
