Buried in 40-plus pages of legalese the ACC made in a court filing Friday was a potential solution to the conferenceâs weeks-long legal back-and-forth with Florida State:
The Seminoles could buy back their TV rights from the conference.
The ACC contends that it owns those rights through 2036. Thatâs because FSU signed a document called a grant of rights in 2016. FSU granted the rights to broadcast its home games to the ACC through 2036. The ACC sold them to ESPN and distributes the money back to FSU and its peers.
Whether that deal is enforceable could ultimately be decided by a judge in Leon County or Mecklenburg County, N.C. If itâs ironclad â as the ACC argues â FSU estimates that it risks losing up to $429 million in TV revenue. If FSU is correct, then the Seminoles could exit for free.
The ACCâs latest motion presents a third option.
âIf Florida State wishes to regain control of the rights before the end of the term, it could attempt to repurchase them,â the filing said. âBut having to buy back a right which was assigned is not a penalty; it is simply a commercial possibility.â
A commercial possibility that had not been raised previously in the dueling lawsuits. A price was not specified but, like everything in this legal fight, is subject to negotiation.
The rest of the filing was a series of technical arguments. Many focused on where this dispute should be heard â in FSUâs home venue (Leon County Circuit Court) or the ACCâs home venue (Mecklenburg County Superior Court).
The ACC filed its suit in North Carolina on Dec. 21, the day before FSU sued the conference in Leon County. Fridayâs filing said North Carolina remains the proper venue because itâs where the conference is based and home of the first suit. The league said Florida State was âfumbling the jurisdictional ball.â
âFlorida State alleges no facts in support of its bare-bones venue allegation (for Tallahassee),â the motion said.
The conference reiterated how FSU has received millions of TV dollars without complaint. That fact cuts against the schoolâs argument that those deals were rotten or broken and, according to the filing, means FSU canât challenge their validity. It also means North Carolinaâs three-year statute of limitations is up.
Fridayâs document fights back against FSUâs antitrust claims that the ACC has limited the Seminolesâ ability to compete in the marketplace. The ACC responded with two points: Cal, Stanford and SMU are joining the ACC despite the guidelines FSU is blasting, while competitors like the Big Ten and SEC are thriving. Those are signs of a market thatâs working, not one thatâs broken.
The ACC took issue with two other points. One is that FSUâs suit asks a court for legal guidance before voting on whether to leave. Instead, Florida State could have given the ACC its notice of withdrawal and worked through the legal and financial details afterward.
The second responded to FSUâs previous suggestions that now-former commissioner John Swofford made an improper TV deal that helped his son. The ACC did not give a detailed defense but said Florida State was âimproperly using this Court to air decades-old insinuations (apparently solely from an old news article) about former ACC Commissioner Swofford and his son.â
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2024-02-17 02:11:11
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