Florida State, ACC headed to court over fees agreement

— Florida Tallahassee, Fla. State sued the Atlantic Coast Conference on Friday, challenging an agreement that binds the school to the league for the next 12 years with more than half a billion dollars in fees for leaving and taking the first step in a lengthy and uncertain process toward a potential exit.

“Today we've reached a crossroad in our relationship with the ACC,” Florida State Board of Trustees Chairman Peter Collins said during a trustees meeting to approve the legal action.

After months of threats and warnings from Florida State, the lawsuit was filed in Leon County Circuit Court. The suit claims the ACC has mismanaged its members' media rights and is imposing “draconian” exit fees. Breaking the grant-of-rights agreement and leaving the ACC right now would cost Florida State $572 million, according to the lawsuit.

In a preemptive counter attack, the ACC filed a lawsuit in North Carolina against the Florida State Board of Trustees, claiming the school could not challenge the grant of rights that it had signed and that these issues should be decided in the state where the conference is located.

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and Virginia President Jim Ryan, chairman of the conference's board of directors, said Florida State's actions are “in direct conflict with their longstanding obligations and is a clear violation of their legal commitments to the other members of the conference.”

“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,” their statement said. “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.”

David Ashburn, an attorney representing Florida State, said during the board meeting the ACC's grant of rights violates antitrust law, has unenforceable withdrawal penalties and is not even a valid contract. The lawsuit also accuses the ACC of breach of contract by not upholding conference bylaws and violation of public policy.

“It's hard to handicap where those claims will go,” said Mit Winter, a Kansas City, Mo.based sports attorney. “And I think Florida State knows that as well. I think they threw in anything they could potentially think of as a colorable argument to get them out of the grant-of-rights agreement.”

Florida State is looking for a way out of a conference it has been a member of since 1992. During its time in the ACC, Florida State has won three football national championships, the most recent in 2013, and made the first College Football Playoff in 2014.

The Seminoles were left out of this year's playoff, despite an unbeaten record. Florida State President Richard McCullough said the playoff snub did not prompt the lawsuit.

The first sentence of Florida State's claim is: “The stunning exclusion of the ACC's undefeated football champion from the 2023-24 College Football Playoff in deference to two one-loss teams from two competing Power Four conferences crystalized the years of failures by the ACC to fulfill its most fundamental commitments to FLORIDA STATE and its members.”

Florida State leaders believe the ACC locked its members into an undervalued and unusually lengthy contract with ESPN that leaves the Seminoles' athletic programs at a massive disadvantage against schools in the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, which have TV deals that pay more over a shorter period of time.