ACC and Florida State sue each other, Cal gets mentioned in the lawsuits
The ongoing saga of the new Cal conference continues.
College football season over for Cal! Back to realignment chaos.
Florida State University's Board of Trustees has unanimously voted to sue the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) to challenge the legality of the league's grant of rights and its $130 million withdrawal fee.
The 38-page lawsuit, filed in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee, Florida, seeks a declaratory judgment against the ACC, claiming that the grant of rights and withdrawal fee are "unreasonable restraints of trade in the state of Florida and not enforceable in their entirety against Florida State." The university alleges "chronic fiduciary mismanagement and bad faith" in the ACC's handling of multimedia rights agreements, breach of contract, and failure to perform.
ACC officials have described the document as "ironclad," but the lawsuit raises questions about its enforceability, as no school has previously tested it in court. The university claims growing revenue gaps with other conferences and disagreements over the distribution of media rights money within the ACC, pushing for uneven distribution based on media value, which the ACC has refused.
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and Virginia president Jim Ryan, chair of the ACC board of directors, issued a statement lamenting Florida State's "unprecedented and overreaching approach." The ACC filed a preemptive legal maneuver by filing a complaint for declaratory judgment against the Florida State board of trustees in North Carolina, asserting that the Grant of Rights signed by Florida State in 2013 and 2016 is valid and enforceable through June 30, 2036.
The heart of Florida State's complaint lies in its dissatisfaction with the ACC's handling of media rights agreements with ESPN and withdrawal penalties since 2010. The university alleges that the 2016 extension of media rights with ESPN included an ultimatum that forced members to extend the grant of rights from 2027 to 2036, locking members into the same rates negotiated in the previous 2012 multimedia rights contract, hindering revenue growth for 24 years.
If a judge grants declaratory judgment in favor of Florida State, the school could leave the ACC without penalty, effective August 14, 2023. The ACC, however, maintains that Florida State willingly signed the Grant of Rights, benefiting from millions of dollars in revenue, and argues that the agreement will be affirmed by the courts.
The Florida State lawsuit against the ACC can be found here.
The ACC lawsuit against Florida State can be found here.
There are a lot of legal things to wrangle out here. We’ll get to those later. First, Cal mentions.
Cal joining the ACC along with Stanford was cited in the lawsuit as a reason for Florida State leaving. None of the points made really hold up. You’ll find these points under the The ACC Mishandles the Sweeping Conference Realignment of the 2020’s section on pages 22-26.
Florida State cites Oregon State as having more valuable Tier 1 media rights than Cal and Stanford because they had a better record in 2023. But Cal has always drawn better TV ratings and ticket sales. This doesn't hold.
Additionally, Florida State cites Oregon State as the more valuable football brand of the four. But they've had the worst record in the last decade in the Pac-12, aside from Colorado. They should have cited Washington State, a team that made seven bowl games in eight seasons.
Florida State misspelled Berkeley and referred to Cal as California Berkley, a team that has never existed.
"Stanford and Cal are excellent schools with well-deserved outstanding academic reputations, they are each lacking in the lone metric that matters ... Tier I media football appeal." is an actual quote. The Bay Area is the 10th largest TV market, with a Super Bowl contender that is a top 5 NFL brand.
"Just as last year, this year Stanford and Cal finished in the bottom half of the Pac-12 in football standings." Cal won four conference games, as many as Clemson, UNC and Duke, and more than Miami.
The ACC didn’t mention Cal much in their suit. In fact, the only time they are mentioned is in a footnote, where Berkeley is misspelled again.
Maybe everyone thinks the ACC invited some other California school.
More on all this in the coming days, weeks, months, years…
I mentioned this in the WSU/OSU settlement thread, but I am reading online that ESPN can opt out of the media deal in 2027.
So playing some 3D chess, I suppose one could argue that if FSU can scare off ESPN from renewing out of fear that the biggest brands might jump ship, that could result in two possible scenarios. The GOR might dissolve because it heavily references the ESPN agreement. So if the ESPN agreement stops, one could probably find a way out of the GOR. But even if the GOR holds, it would put the ACC in a really tough spot having to negotiate a new media deal. One could see FSU and others strong arming the conference to accept a deal tilted heavily towards performance, for example a streaming deal where subscriptions are tagged to individual schools and money is distributed accordingly.
I guess my point, is that I was originally under the impression that 2036 was our next realignment check-in. But this new info is indicating that it could be much sooner.
One of the complaints by FSU is that Cal and Stanford are lower-performing teams, and therefore dilute their strength of schedule, and hurt their chances of making the playoff. I ran the numbers:
* Cal is 5-2-1 all time against the ACC, and is currently on a 4-game winning streak.
* furd is 8-7 all time against the ACC, and is currently on a 6-game winning streak.
Not only can't Florida State spell, they also don't know the definition of "dilute".