Florida State sues California or Stanford in the ACC and blows them up.
Florida State University sued the ACC early Friday morning, likely to get a court to help it get out of the conference for less money. The school would have to pay more than $500 million to leave the ACC right now.
The ACC’s decision to add Stanford University in California and Southern Methodist University in Dallas is seen as an example of decisions that “appear dedicated to self-preservation while self-perpetuation regarding the fiscal well-being of its members,” according to Florida State.
In the document, Florida State makes clear how its institution, which has been in the ACC for over 30 years, thinks about the new teams that have joined.
But Florida State seems to have done a lot of wrong when it talked badly about its new league rivals.
Look at the part that talks about how having Stanford, Cal, and SMU will “weaken” and “dilute” the ACC for future College Football Playoff (CFP) bids.
The Seminoles didn’t make the playoffs this year, even though they had a 13-0 record; Alabama, which had a 12-1 record, beat them. This is a very personal and angry point for the school.
The lawsuit says, “This will necessarily make it harder for ACC members to compete for a spot in future CFPs towards peers from the remaining Power Four conferences, even peers with worse won-loss records.”
“One of the new ACC members has lost all media payments it was due as a “member,” and the other two have lost about 66% of the total payout… for the next few years. This may be the most telling sign of how little media cache those new members have.”
That being said, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Yes, Florida State was knocked over for the final, and fourth, spot in this year’s CFP. It’s hard to understand why the committee made that choice.
The CFP will grow to 12 teams next year, though, so this is the last season with only four teams in the playoff. The “future CFPs” argument doesn’t seem to make sense because future CFPs will already look very different.
Adding Stanford and Cal is also only possible because the Pac-12 broke up, which reduced the number of “power” leagues from five to four.
The current plan to conduct a 12-team playoff gives six automatic bids to conference winners.
The top four seeds are also reserved just for conference champions. However, before next season, the number of automatic bids will probably drop from six to five.
This month, FSU was turned down for the College Football Playoff. This made them decide to fight the ACC over the award of rights.
The school says that ACC schools have been mismanaged for years, resulting in a “deteriorating” media rights deal and “draconian” penalties that make it impossible for schools to leave. It claims restraint of trade, violating the contract, and failure to perform.
It’s been made clear by Florida State that not making the college football playoff is not the only reason for this.
Florida State has made it clear that it doesn’t like the league and promised in August to act quickly to protect its future.
Not making the CFP was that final straw. The board then thought the university wasn’t able to wait any longer to do something. Since the summer, Florida State has been working on its court case.
Even if Florida State had made the playoffs, the school would have still fought the rights grant in 2024. During the August board meeting, trustee Justin Roth asked for a plan to leave the ACC by August 2024.
Friday, FSU’s Board of Trustees passed unanimously to sue the conference. They want to go after the grant of licenses document that ties the Seminoles and all other ACC teams to the league and its media partner ESPN until the 2035–36 school year.
During a 50-minute virtual board meeting, David C. Ashburn, FSU’s outside attorney, made the school’s case against the conference.
He said that the ACC’s withdrawal penalty scheme ($572 million) and granting of rights were against Florida law and “unenforceable.”