Florida State, Clemson likely not getting SEC or B1G invites. Is Big 12 and private equity on deck?

A quick look in on realignment drama, and the moving players remaining on the chessboard.

Photo by Piotr Makowski on Unsplash

And back we go to the madness of realignment.

On that topic, the offseason has been centered around Florida State and Clemson and the ACC suing each other. The former two seem to be looking for a way out of the supposedly ironclad ACC Grant of Rights, and the ACC seems bent on keeping them locked in the conference. There have been many suits and countersuits and Write for California has covered them all offseason long.

Alas, our offseason of suits appears to be turning toward actual news. Two interesting realignment tidbits have seemingly been passed along in the past week that caught my eye.

Brett McMurphy reports that the Big Ten and SEC are good with what they’ve got, and have no interest in getting involved in grabbing Florida State and Clemson. The issues begin with Florida State’s erratic behavior.

Several sources added they weren’t convinced they could “trust” Florida State as a new member.

“Look what they did: getting the attorney general involved, accusing [former ACC commissioner] John Swofford of rigging the television rights to help his son, filing a suit to expose ESPN’s TV deals — something the other three power leagues are against, by the way,” the source said. “They’re not a good partner. There’s no congeniality. No one wants that.

“It’s not about FSU getting out of the ACC’s Grant of Rights. They’re not a fit.”

But there are other concerns. Neither Florida State nor Clemson are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), which is known to highlight top academic research institutions (every member of the Big Ten is in the AAU). And then there is the major concern of whether the SEC or Big Ten would have to payout the potential Grant of Rights exit fee, which has been reported to be as high as over half a billion dollars per program. Those fees would offset any relative gains of either college football brand to the conference.

The Big 12 though, well, they’ll just try about anything.

Ross Dellenger had this to say about the conference getting involved in talks with Florida State and Clemson.

“You look at Florida State and Clemson’s options, the first option would probably be to get into the Big Ten or the SEC,” Dellenger told John Kurtz. “The second option would be, in some way, to reform the ACC with a smaller number of teams where you would be at a financial advantage because you wouldn’t split the TV distribution with 18. Maybe, you would split it with 10, so they can re-form in a smaller group. And Option Three is to probably join another league, which there’s only one other Power Conference league and that’s the Big 12.

“You look at those options – again, they probably prefer No. 1. I don’t know if that’s gonna happen because the SEC has schools in those states already in Florida and South Carolina, and the Big Ten, I don’t know how interested they are in coming south. Those things might happen. But I think there is at least early conversation between the Big 12 and those schools about the possibility. I don’t know that it’s anything serious yet because they do have to get out of the ACC, whether that’s through a settlement or a court rule. So we could be months, if not years, away from something. That does seem to be one of the possibilities is the Big 12.”

You might ask yourself, how will a second-tier conference end up finding the money to grab Clemson and Florida State in a way the SEC or Big Ten wouldn’t dare?

Well, funny you should ask, because America’s best friend private equity has entered the fray.

To keep up with the super conferences, commissioner Brett Yormark has begun broaching the subject of a PE partner that can help bridge the gap.

Big 12 members are considering a first-of-its kind private equity investment to ensure the league's long-term financial and competitive security, multiple sources tell CBS Sports.

On the table is a possible cash infusion of $800 million to $1 billion from Luxembourg-based CVC Capital Partners in exchange for a 15% to 20% stake in the league, those sources said. A portion of the money would go directly to the 16 conference members, and the partnership would give the conference access to CVC's investment services and clients.

This approach would give the Big 12 a very brief period where they and their partner programs will be able to keep up with the SEC and Big Ten in terms of overall cash flow. But as it goes with private equity, any stake will need to be recouped profit-wise to justify this investment, and there will likely be significant shakeups in multiple athletic departments within the conference to cut costs, trim down anything that doesn’t make profit, and gut some programs entirely.

But those consequences would be less relevant to Florida State and Clemson, whose immediate concern is “GET OUT”. They would immediately become the two biggest programs on the block in the Big 12. They’d be free of the onerous Grant of Rights. Their brand value and high donor level will likely shield them from the worst risks that come from a private equity partnership. After the initial contract runs out with the Big 12 and exit fees become negligible, a super conference invite would be inevitable.

Now, to be clear, these are just early rumors. It’s unlikely the many lawsuits will untangle themselves in time for a change before the 2024 regular season.

But these seem to be the relative takeaways.

• Florida State and Clemson want out of the ACC.

• They have made it clear through their actions in court and in public that they are not likely to reach any sort of contrite resolution.

• If any loophole can be found in the ACC Grant of Rights that can be pulled out in court, then the ACC might likely have to pivot to a new strategy that requires settling with Clemson and Florida State.

• If the GoR is proven in court to be ironclad, then Clemson and Florida State could likely be stuck in the ACC for a little while longer, when the buyout becomes significantly less problematic, unless the Big Ten, SEC or Big 12 want to step up and get involved.

• The Big Ten and SEC do not seem to be willing to go into partnership with Florida State or Clemson; even if they’d add brand value, they’d almost certainly have to pony up to pay the extremely expensive exit fees that would come from breaking the Grant of Rights (or even a smaller settlement).

• The Big 12, fronted by private equity money and desperate to keep up with the Super Power 2 conferences, could be willing to step in, and settle the expensive exit fees that would come from extracting Florida State and Clemson from the ACC. This would also land them two college football bluebloods to replace the Oklahoma and Texas that just left, and afford them more power and freedom they didn’t enjoy from the Conference of Tobacco Road.

I think a lot of pieces would have to move for this all to happen, none of it is happening soon, and certainly more twists are coming in the story. But it’s clear that in the near future, the ACC will not have its two biggest powers, at which point the conference will itself cease to be relevant, and maybe even exist.

So what does that mean for Cal?

A big challenge for the new leadership of Chancellor Rich Lyons is to stay on top of these ongoing developments, and pave a path forward that has Cal in a major conference. All signs point to the Big Ten being the north star.

Florida State and Clemson are very likely going to leave the ACC in the coming years, which is the point the ACC will itself cease to be a major conference, regardless of whatever exit fees are distributed to the remaining schools. Many of the other major brands like North Carolina and Virginia, Louisville and Miami, Duke and NC State, will all attempt to seek safe harbor. What remains is not even worth saving.

Cal will have to likely search for a new home then, right after having to embarrassingly find this one last minute. The mutual and cultural disinterest with the Big 12 is probably not going anywhere, and the SEC wouldn’t even look twice.

That leaves the Big Ten, and a potential reunion with our big Pac-4 buds and a lot of like-minded college programs. This is who the University of California should begin to start building the relationships with now, so we are not caught on the backfoot like we were the last two summers. And of course on the gridiron, Cal has to prove itself as a legitimate program on the upward trajectory, and continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Otherwise, it’ll be utter irrelevance. And then oblivion for the Bears.

Cal is in a hole. It is still salvageable. But the work has to begin as soon as humanly possible.