Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Jim Phillips said the league will fight “as long as it takes” in legal cases against Florida State and Clemson as those member schools challenge the league's ability to charge hundreds of millions of dollars to leave the conference.
Speaking Monday to start the league's football media days, Phillips called lawsuits filed by FSU and Clemson “extremely damaging, disruptive and harmful" to the league. Most notably, those schools are challenging the league's grant-of-rights media agreement that gives the ACC control of media rights for any school that attempts to leave for the duration of a TV deal with ESPN running through 2036.
The league has also sued those schools to enforce the agreement in a legal dispute with no end in sight.
“I can say that we will fight to protect the ACC and our members for as long as it takes,” Phillips said. “We are confident in this league and that it will remain a premier conference in college athletics for the long-term future.”
The lawsuits come amid tension as conference expansion and realignment reshape the national landscape as schools chase more and more revenue. In the case of the ACC, the league is bringing in record revenues and payouts yet lags behind the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference.
The grant-of-rights provision, twice agreed to by the member schools in the years before the launch of the ACC Network channel in 2019, is designed to deter defections in future realignment since a school would not be able to bring its TV rights to enhance a new suitor’s media deal. That would mean hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, separate from having to pay a nine-figure exit fee.
Schools that could leave with reduced or no financial impact could jeopardize the league's long-term future.
“The fact is that every member of this conference willingly signed the grant of rights unanimous, and quite frankly eagerly, agreed to our current television contract and the launch of the ACC Network," Phillips said. "The ACC — our collective membership and conference office — deserves better.”
According to tax documents, the ACC distributed an average of $44.8 million per school for 14 football-playing members (Notre Dame receives a partial share as a football independent) and $706.6 million in total revenue for the 2022-23 season. That is third behind the Big Ten ($879.9 million revenue, $60.3 million average payout) and SEC ($852.6 million, $51.3 million), and ahead of the smaller Big 12 ($510.7 million, $44.2 million).
Those numbers don't factor in the recent wave of realignment that tore apart the Pac-12 to leave only four power conferences. The ACC is adding Stanford, California and SMU this year; USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington are entering the Big Ten from the Pac-12; and Texas and Oklahoma have left the Big 12 for the SEC.
