The ACC constitution contains an Aug. 15 deadline for members to inform the league of their departure for the following year. That deadline has now come and gone for Clemson and Florida State, which are suing the league to get out of its grant of rights, a move that would allow them to more actively pursue membership in another conference.
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FSU and the ACC are also in the middle of a court-ordered mediation that will last into next week. No resolution is expected to come out of that mediation, and sources on all sides did not expect Clemson and FSU to make any announcements on their future before Aug. 15, leaving all parties to continue their courtroom battles as the 2024 football season approaches.
So what does it all mean and where do things stand?
The ACC withdrawal deadline
The ACC requires a notice of withdrawal by Aug. 15 in order for a member to leave on June 30 of the following year. When Florida State sued the ACC in December 2023, it asked a Florida court to deem that FSU issued its notice of withdrawal to the league effective Aug. 14, 2023, if the court ruled that the grant of rights was illegal or unenforceable. The legal fight has dragged on, but FSU has technically not put in its withdrawal yet.
Clemson’s legal challenge, filed in March, argues the slightly different stance that the grant of rights should not apply once a school leaves the conference. Clemson said in March that it had not given an official notice of withdrawal.
“We will fight to protect the ACC and our members for as long as it takes,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said at ACC media days in July. “We are confident in this league and that it will remain a premier conference in college athletics for the long-term future. These disputes continue to be extremely damaging, disruptive and incredibly harmful to the league, as well as overshadowing our student-athletes and the incredible successes taking place on the field and within the conference.”
Why Florida State and Clemson want to leave
Money. The ACC’s television deal pays its member schools around $30 million per year, the third-highest payout among Power 4 leagues, but the SEC and Big Ten are both closer to $60 million annually. The new College Football Playoff contract, beginning in 2026, includes a new revenue distribution model that will pay SEC and Big Ten schools around $21 million annually, while ACC schools will earn around $13 million.
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Between those two revenue streams, ACC schools are looking at being as much as $40 million behind Big Ten and SEC schools annually, though the ACC’s new “success incentive” bonus pool could close that gap a little bit. FSU and Clemson have national championship expectations in football and find the situation untenable, so they’ve filed legal challenges to the ACC grant of rights, an agreement both schools signed that gives the ACC all its schools’ TV rights through 2036.
The state of the court battles
There are four ongoing lawsuits: the ACC against each school in North Carolina, and each school against the ACC in Florida and South Carolina, respectively. But the lawsuits have moved slowly and are still in the early stage of determining where the disputes should take place.
A North Carolina court ruled separately that the ACC’s cases against FSU and Clemson could move forward in North Carolina, denying each school’s motion to dismiss. FSU has appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, and Clemson will do the same.
A Florida court ruled that FSU’s case against the ACC could move forward in Florida. The ACC has appealed that, with a hearing set for Sept. 11.
A South Carolina court earlier this month ruled that Clemson’s case could move forward in South Carolina. The ACC is expected to appeal.
What happens if the cases continue in each state? It’s complicated, and the answer will only drag things out even longer. Whichever court rules first could have the advantage, but not necessarily.
The ACC, for its part, has pushed back hard and held firm to its simple stance that FSU and Clemson knew what they had signed up for and gladly took part in the league’s television deal for many years.
“The fact is that every member of this conference willingly signed the Grant of Rights and unanimously and, quite frankly, eagerly agreed to our current television contract and the launch of the ACC Network,” Phillips said. “The ACC, our collective membership and conference office, deserves better. The support for our student-athletes, coaches and programs is extraordinary. That will continue despite these disruptions.”
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The court battles will take months, potentially years, to sort out, unless there’s a settlement or a change in circ*mstances.
The chances of a settlement
The ongoing active mediation between the ACC and Florida State was ordered by the Florida court back in April. The introduction of a mediator does not mandate a resolution; it just requires the ACC and FSU sides to talk. That mediation window ends next week.
The chances of any settlement have been low because the ACC has no incentive to settle and has been winning in its local court. A settlement permitting FSU and Clemson to head elsewhere would cause the ACC to lose its premier football brands and create the pathway for other member schools to try to follow them out the door.
Florida State lawyers have estimated that without a court victory nullifying the grant of rights, the cost for the school to leave the ACC could be $572 million.
What’s next?
The legal fights move on at their slow pace. The next court hearing is the ACC’s appeal in Florida on Sept. 11.
But there is another deadline coming up. The ACC’s television deal with ESPN runs through 2027, with a network option through 2036 that ESPN must exercise by February 2025. Those details were only made public through FSU’s legal filings, as it was previously assumed the deal ran uninterrupted through 2036. Phillips has described the conversations with ESPN as positive and productive, but it’s unclear what could happen if we get closer to February without the option being picked up.
FSU and Clemson believe they will draw interest from the Big Ten and SEC if they break free of the ACC. Leaders in both the Big Ten and SEC have stayed away from any such discussions, so as not to open themselves to tortious interference claims. Schools in those two conferences would not want to decrease their slice of their respective revenue pies with new additions. New Big Ten members Oregon and Washington are receiving 50 percent shares in the league’s revenue through the end of the decade, while the league’s other 16 schools will receive whole shares.
In the meantime, the plodding march into the uncertain next chapter of college sports realignment continues.
Required reading
• The ACC vs. Florida State and Clemson: The courtroom clash on which realignment’s future hangs
(Photo: Ken Ruinard / USA Today)
Chris Vannini covers national college football issues and the coaching carousel for The Athletic. A co-winner of the FWAA's Beat Writer of the Year Award in 2018, he previously was managing editor of CoachingSearch.com. Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisVannini
