Clemson has lengthy been content material to sit down simply outdoors the ring and watch Florida State very publicly and really loudly combat the identical combat it was additionally able to wage. It doesn’t imply the colleges had dissimilar objectives, however it does imply that they had dissimilar tacts.
You couldn’t watch a Clemson board of trustees assembly on YouTube like you would FSU’s to see Seminoles directors each inside and outdoors of athletics discuss overtly about the necessity to go away the ACC over a yr in the past. However after watching and ready, the Tigers have lastly joined the Noles in suing the ACC on a parallel authorized monitor. It turns the warmth up on a league that was already in scorching water.
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The details of Clemson’s authorized argument are: the penalty price the ACC would impose upon it if it left the league (probably $500 million or extra) is unenforceable and Clemson might go away the league and nonetheless management the media rights for its video games. The very fact they signed a doc granting the ACC management of these rights by way of at the least 2027 is the place the time period “Grant of Rights” comes from. ESPN has the choice to increase its tv deal and the grant of rights by way of ’36 however should achieve this by February ’25. It’s unclear if the grant of rights extends by way of ’36 it doesn’t matter what occurs to the TV deal. In an announcement, Clemson maintains that it has not left the convention on the present second, however stated it has “no selection however to maneuver ahead with this lawsuit.”
The ACC, clearly, is dedicated to holding them to the settlement:
pic.twitter.com/2czOHMIsrX
— The ACC (@theACC) March 19, 2024
And why shouldn’t the ACC stand its floor? It behooves the league to tug this entire factor to hell and again by way of the authorized system each with Clemson and Florida State.
Past the authorized theatrics, there’s a leverage angle at play right here. Clemson and FSU have been joined by Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia and Virginia Tech in wanting on the grant of rights final spring. It stands to motive that 5 of these faculties which have but to sue the league might file their very own authorized actions within the close to future. It ratchets up how precarious one in every of faculty sports activities’ two middle-class leagues feels. The tip objective from the colleges’ facet doubtless seems to be like a pressured settlement the place the ACC provides the colleges a quantity to depart, and the colleges can then discover a strategy to meet it by way of bonds or personal fairness or a Lady Scout bake sale. However proper now, the colleges can solely estimate the worst case, which FSU’s lawsuit does. Noles brass got here up with the quantity $572 million except they gained in courtroom to get it whittled down.
But when the league provides the colleges a quantity, they’d in all probability bounce tomorrow. The ACC can attempt to simply jam this up in courtroom for so long as potential at which case who is aware of what type faculty sports activities will even take. That state of affairs, nonetheless, is one that doesn’t sit terribly properly with the Noles or Tigers, however the settlement is one each faculties voluntarily signed years in the past. These lawsuits are the authorized equal of claiming the deal we signed was advantageous then however stinks now and we wish out. And if Florida State has made any headway in its angling to depart the league, then it will profit Clemson to not keep on the sideline anymore. Now the query is that if another ACC faculties are going to begin to get antsy.
