Florida State University is suing the Atlantic Coast Conference in state court, alleging that FSU should be allowed to withdraw from the collegiate athletic organization after ACC dropped the ball on generating revenues for its members.
The FSU Board of Trustees filed the legal complaint on Dec. 22 in the Second Judicial Circuit in Leon County. The filing comes in the wake of FSU’s undefeated football team being excluded from the 2023-2024 College Football Playoff in favor of teams in other conferences.
“In the past two decades, in contrast to the ACC, the (Southeastern Conference) and the Big Ten have aggressively and repeatedly negotiated increasingly more lucrative media rights agreements, generating substantial revenues for their members, without locking them into the much longer-term media agreements the ACC negotiated,” the lawsuit states.
The ACC has also prevented members from exercising their right to withdraw from the conference through the use of a “prohibitive” withdrawal penalty and an “unconscionable” Grants of Rights provision in their contracts, according to the complaint.
“In sum, the ACC has negotiated itself into a self-described ‘existential crisis,’ rendered itself fiscally unstable and substantially undermined its members’ capacity to compete at the elite level,” the lawsuit says. ”In doing so, the ACC violated the contractual, fiduciary and legal duties it owed its members.”
The ACC, however, characterized FSU’s action against the conference as a violation of the school’s commitments to other members and its long-term obligations.
“All ACC members, including Florida State, willingly and knowingly re-signed the current Grant of Rights in 2016, which is wholly enforceable and binding through 2036,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and Board of Directors Chairman Jim Ryan said in a joint statement emailed to the Florida Record. “Each university has benefited from this agreement, receiving millions of dollars in revenue, and neither Florida State nor any other institution has ever challenged its legitimacy.”
The conference has also filed a lawsuit against FSU in North Carolina, where ACC is based, in a bid to set the venue in that state.
“... The ACC has won the most NCAA National Championships over the past 2 1/2 years while also achieving the highest graduation success and academic performance rates among all (NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision) conferences,” the statement says, “so it is especially disappointing that FSU would choose to pursue this unprecedented and overreaching approach.”
ACC officials have expressed confidence that the courts would uphold the conference's Grant of Rights and enforce its provisions.
The FSU’s lawsuit accuses the ACC of mishandling talks with ESPN about the broadcast of conference games in a way that has cost members tens of millions of dollars in revenues. In turn, the ACC has lost ground to Power Four schools in opportunities to take part in elite athletic competitions, the complaint says.
Specifically, the lawsuit accuses the ACC of threatening to hit FSU with “draconian” penalties of at least $572 million if it withdraws from the conference. Other allegations against the ACC include restraint of trade, breach of contract and failing to fulfill promises.
At a recent board meeting the FSU Board of Trustees indicated that trustees have been considering filing the lawsuit for more than a year due to the ACC’s alleged mismanagement.