Florida State is making official big waves

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Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's pretty interesting because they said, and look, Florida State's been looking to do this for months and months and months long before they got snubbed by the by the college football playoffs. But if you read the 38 page complaint that they filed today in Tallahassee, it starts right off the first sentence says the stunning exclusion of the ACC's undefeated football champion. But it uses the being left out of the out of the college football playoff to say that, hey, this crystallizes the years of failure by the ACC to fulfill its most fundamental commitments.

It basically argues that the ACC has has has failed, has failed to monetize the schools in its league in a proper way. And they're asking a judge to basically rule that the ACC's exit fee and its grant of rights are unenforceable penalties and and teams should be able to come and go as they please. Now, if if I'm a schooler or if I'm the ACC and like you all signed this Florida State, along with every other school, like when the grant of rights kind of re-upped back in 2016, everyone signed this.

So it's not like this is some like, wait a second, hold on some fine print thing. Every school in the ACC from Boston College all the way down to Miami, they all signed this. Yeah, the Florida State's argument is that the ACC, you know, the ACC has duties, financial duties to its member schools and that they are in breach of contract of those duties that they are their agent as far as, you know, they're their Florida State's agent, their North Carolina's agent, NC State's agent when it comes to negotiating these deals and to they have not lived up to their end of this contract between the school and the conference. And so they're and they're arguing that whatever penalties are in place for the grant of rights are supposed to be estimates that have some some correlation to actual market values. And that the fact that the grant of rights has gone up so much or the penalties to leave the league has gone up so much while revenue to the league has not indicates that this is an unenforceable penalty in their mind.

And they're asking the judge to find it such and and reduce those penalties to zero. So if they are, by the way, Brian Murphy, WRL Sports Investigator reporter joining us here in the Adam Gold Show, let's say Florida State successful with this. Let's say they're able to successfully challenge the grant of rights in the ACC. Who's to say that not just North Carolina State, Duke, Clemson or anyone else in the ACC can challenge it, but who's to say that an SEC school won't challenge their grant of rights or the Big Ten won't challenge theirs or any other school in any other conference?

What kind of precedent does this set? Well, no, no one has challenged the grant of rights yet, and I doubt that anyone I doubt that anyone in the SEC or the Big Ten would challenge their grant of rights for a long time. And I'll have to go check the SEC didn't even have a buyout.

If you wanted to leave the SEC, all you had to do was send a letter and leave the SEC. That's how strong that's how strongly they felt that teams would not want to leave that league. You know, yes, this would be a huge precedent for not only conferences, but for television networks. Remember, it's the TV networks that want these grant of rights because they stabilize membership. If ESPN's signing a deal with the ACC, they want to know that at the end of that deal, that Florida State and Clemson and North Carolina and Duke are still going to be in the league or else they might be paying for a product that they don't want to pay for. So I think the television networks above all will hope that these grant of rights hold because if they don't, then what's the guarantee that when they sign a long-term deal with a conference that the people that they want to broadcast are even going to be in that conference when it's all said and done? That's a really good point because a lot of people say, well, what if Florida State goes to the SEC and you know, the ESPN or Disney could just pay more money to the SEC. Well, ESPN already has Florida State on their TV networks and they're paying a lot less to have Florida State on there or Clemson or North Carolina on there than they are paying for Vanderbilt or some of these other schools actually be on there. So for them, it's beneficial to keep them on air in the ACC. And this is why this something that was brought up in the Board of Trustees meeting today is that the that Disney ESPN can unilaterally decide to extend the grant of rights agreement that's currently in place from 2027 to 2036.

And I think that decision has to be made by 2025. You can play anywhere. With lucky land slots, you can get lucky just about anywhere. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to, has anyone seen the bride and groom?

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See website for details. Are we possibly going to see the ACC and ESPN maybe come back in good faith to the negotiating table to discuss further what they can do in terms of media deal? Or is ESPN just going to say, hey, you know what, we're just going to keep it moving? Yeah, I think this is the most interesting part of what came out today.

Most of the other stuff was kind of expected. But the fact that, you know, we've been, we've been reporting all along and no one has told us we're wrong. And certainly when I say we, I mean the media at large that the ACC deal with ESPN runs through 2036. We know the grant of rights runs through 26, but that their actual agreement with ESPN runs through 2036.

What we found out today is that it doesn't. It only runs through 2027 and that ESPN has an exclusive rights all the way up until February of 2025 to decide whether or not to extend that contract by nine years. I think that's, I think that's kind of important and I think it gives ESPN an out here maybe to cut a deal with Florida State or to cut a deal with other members of the league. We'll see the full ramifications of that, but I thought that was by far the most important thing that came out of all of these filings.

I mean, the other thing I'll point out is that these filings are chock full of information that we have not been able to get. We know exactly how much Notre Dame gets paid by the ACC now. Even some of that is in the, in the, the, the tax forms that the league files.

And so you can kind of deduce it, but, you know, they get 18.4% of a share of that what the other schools get. All this information is, is in this lawsuit. I'm sure the ACC and ESPN did not want some of this out.

Oh, a hundred percent. And there's a reason why the grant of rights is basically under lock and key at the, at the ACC office in Charlotte. And you know, because now it's been made public. Now, now the grant of rights has been made public.

Yeah. And here's the thing. It's going to be get made public. And I think a lot of people are going to really start combing over this thing. But ACC has said this, this grant of rights is ironclad, Brian, and this is certainly going to be challenged. And this is going to be a precedent moving forward for not just Florida state and the ACC, but again, every conference in the country and every school, if Florida state successful with this, then who's to say that, you know, Oklahoma state and the big 12 will challenge the grant of rights or something along those lines or Kansas. You know, who knows what they're going to try and do.

I think it's important to think of this as sort of an opening salvo that, that it's a negotiating tactic. I think what Florida state is trying to do is, is come to an agreement on some number. That's not the 572 million that is a, that they think they would owe for getting out of the league right now.

And, and clearly they're not going to get out of the league for $0. So is there a number between zero and 572 million where Florida state and the ACC can agree and everyone can go their separate ways? I mean, obviously the ACC wants that number as high as possible because if, if Florida state can get out for 300 million, then, you know, Clemson is going to raise 300 million and get out. You know, North Carolina is going to raise 300 million and get out.

I mean, this is as much about setting a number for, for Florida state and maybe for other schools as it is about, you know, dismantling the grant of rights. Cash prizes every day, adds up when you play at Pulse Casino. PULSE.COM, over 700 casino style games and counting, and no terrible lounge singer, promise.

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