Update on FSU vs ACC

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Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger. For the ones who get it done. Brian Murphy, WRAL Sports investigative reporter at Murph's Turf on Twitter. Joining us not only just to say hi and talk about the Tar Heels being great and future national champions, but more importantly to talk about the hearing that is going on today where Florida State and the ACC are squaring off.

Let me just start here. What is the basis for this hearing? Is this about actually arguing the case or is this about trying to make sure that the venue is held in North Carolina?

Yeah, it's the latter. They want to make sure that the venue should be in North Carolina. Florida State's arguing that the ACC didn't follow its own bylaws and rushing to get this court on the docket in Mecklenburg County and that it should be thrown out and the case should actually be heard.

In Leon County, they're in Tallahassee. And then secondly, they're talking about whether or not the ESPN contract should remain under seal and Florida State is arguing that it's a public record and it should be made public. ESPN and the ACC are arguing that it's a private contract and it should not be made public and that would harm ESPN's business if the entire thing were made public. The judge already said he's not going to rule on the motion to dismiss this case and move it to Leon County and I suspect that he won't make a judgment on the sealing aspect either.

Ryan Murphy is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. In that case, if you want the case, the contract made public, shouldn't ESPN be part of the lawsuit? Yeah, ESPN, they have an attorney in the courtroom and he got up and spoke.

He is not party to that bigger case, but he is party, I guess, to this portion about whether that should be sealed. Florida State making a really novel argument that says basically, well, we're in Florida and we have these big public records laws and this is a contract that involves Florida State so it should be public. And I look forward then to the Big 10's contract becoming public and the Big 12's contract becoming public because UCF is a member of the Big 12 and so all their television contracts should be public. SEC 2, right? Florida. Right, the SEC 2 and when Florida State joins the Big 10, then their contract would be public.

I'm not a lawyer, don't even pretend to play one, but it does seem like ESPN's argument that these are actual business and by putting them out there into the world could cause us harm does seem to be kind of a legitimate argument in this case. I don't remember from the, from the first Adam Golden Studio with my man coach Pete DeRuta, Capital Financial Advisory Group. You have a 401k, but you're changing jobs. You're taking that 401k with you.

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Investment Advisory Services offered by Capital Financial Advisory Group, a North Carolina registered investment advisor. On the initial news reporting on this, Brian Murphy, WRAL Sports investigative reporter is joining us here in the Adam Gold show. I don't remember Florida State initially arguing that the ACC can't sue because they didn't get permission from the rest of the members of the league to sue Florida State and they sued preemptively. They filed the first motion in Charlotte the day before Florida State filed in Leon County. But Clemson clearly identified that as a reason.

Did I just miss that? Was it just not reported at the time? And is Florida State's case helped by the fact that Clemson has definitely highlighted, well, we didn't agree. We didn't want to sue Florida State, which is what they said in their filing.

Right. I mean, Florida State makes the case that, you know, the ACC would have had to get permission from, you know, have to hold a vote and get permission. And it's pretty clear that the ACC did not do that. The ACC is arguing that it retroactively got permission and that this isn't a material litigation.

It's a lot of legalese that I, quite frankly, is a little over my head at the moment. Yeah, they're arguing that the ACC didn't follow its rules and certainly I don't think Clemson would have voted to do it either. And so I don't know, again, the ACC argues, look, we're an ACC company. It doesn't make sense for us to have, I mean, a North Carolina based company or nonprofit is what they call themselves. Of course they are.

Everybody is. But it doesn't make sense for us to have to go to every single jurisdiction where we have a team and file lawsuits in those jurisdictions. This should be heard in North Carolina and that the Florida State, you know, the lawsuit was already up on their Board of Governors site or, you know, their equivalent of their Board of Governors site, Board of Trustees before they even voted.

So like we saw the imminent challenge coming and that's why we acted the way we did. It's a lot of back and forth. You know, they are not yet to the meat of the case and of the issue about withdrawal fees and granted rights and all that. This is going to sound very naive and I'm not even sure you can answer it because this to me doesn't make a ton of sense. All legal cases should be judged on the merit of the case, right? Of the particulars of the case. I assume that judges in Florida, although maybe this is a stupid judgment assumption on my part, and judges in North Carolina are all ready to follow the law. But again, there are examples in real life that doesn't, that don't make any sense. So, does Florida State really believe that a home court advantage gives, like, are they favored now if this ultimately ends up in Leon County Court? Well, we see this all the time to your point in real life. You know, we see judge shopping, we see venue shopping all the time. You know, if you're a Republican governor, you want to get a case held in Texas. If you're a Democratic governor, you'd rather get that heard in California. This happens all the time in, in what I quote unquote, the real world.

And so, yes, I would imagine the law is the same, but the interpretations of that law are probably vastly different if you have Florida State's interests in mind versus, you know, the ACC's interests. But that's a, that's a political thing, right? So, this is, this, this is not a political, this is all, this is economics. And this is, I don't see who, I don't understand the political edge one way or the other. That's what I don't get. I could certainly understand if we were talking about something in the lines of the election or, and that's sort of what I'm referring to here, but this doesn't seem to have red or blue hint either way.

Yeah, well, it's less political and more, you know, do you get the benefit of the doubt? You know, the home team gets the, gets the 50-50 calls. Right, exactly. If it's in Florida or if it's in North Carolina. Is Tim Valentine going to be at one venue and not at the other? I don't, I don't even know. So, in the home team. And it's not a jury, I don't think these would be jury trials either.

No. So, you're not, you're not even talking about a jury that's more, you know, favorable to Florida State in this case. But they're obviously, they're fighting about it. You know, my biggest takeaway was like, man, all the money that's being spent on lawyers. What could Florida State be doing with that money? What could the ACC be doing with that money?

Probably better things than employing a whole, you know, a whole army of lawyers on both sides, attorneys, to argue whether these documents should be sealed or whether this case should take place in Florida or North Carolina. It's really very minor arguments happening right now and obviously billable hours is winning. Billable hours by a mile.

Billable hours is minus $3.50 right now on the money line. By the way, your podcast, I've heard the trailer for the, what's the name of the podcast again? I'm sorry about this. Yeah, Brief History of Triangle Sports.

Oh, that's been around forever. So, check it out with Brian Murphy and Tim Donnelly talking about the origins of gambling in the state and all of that. Where do we stand? What's next? And then we'll say goodbye to Brian Murphy and then I'll ask you for your bracket.

Granger, for the ones who get it done. Yeah, I reported earlier this week about North Carolina and I think they're the one school that everybody is watching. Obviously, Florida State and Clemson have sort of telegraphed their intentions for a while. But I talked to John Pryor with the Board of Trustees at North Carolina and he had some disparaging comments to make about Jim Phillips and says that, you know, the ACC is too focused on supporting the bottom half of the conference and not acting in the best interest of the top tier of the conference. And he'll point to expansion as a way of diluting the votes of the Florida States and Clemsons and North Carolinas of the world as one example. And certainly Jim Phillips has, I think, come out and said this, right?

The expansion to 18 was about protecting the league, protecting the members of the league. And that's clearly not Florida State and Clemson and maybe some others moving forward. But I think everyone is watching what North Carolina does. Bubba Cunningham told me, you know, we will be a part of whatever the top tier, top division or top conference of college athletics is, you know, moving forward. The last point I would make is that no one knows what that's going to look like. Like these cases that Florida State and Clemson are going through right now, it could be in three years that the NCAA really no longer exists.

Right. And that, you know, that schools decide on their own, we don't want to be a part of that or we do want to be a part of that or we want to be a part of it, but we can't afford it. And so, like, how much money are you going to pay to get out of the ACC and join the Big Ten or the SEC only to have the entire thing crumble in two or three years and be reorganized into something else? I think that's a consideration for a school like North Carolina. Oh, there's no question. And now what we know through recent decisions is that they're sort of tied, it seems, with NC State.

At least they need permission from outside entities before they are allowed to leave. Brian Murphy, who's your final four? So I think UConn is going to win the whole thing, but you can't win a bracket by picking UConn. So I took Auburn, Florida, Texas, and Arizona. After the first day of the SEC collapsing, it doesn't look very good, but I figured I couldn't just go with Chalk, so I tried to mix it up a little.

All right, good for you. But I do think Connecticut is going to win. Yeah, they're the best team, and there's a pretty big gap, but that doesn't mean they're going to win. I do have them in the final four losing to North Carolina and then UNC beating Duke in the final. Oh, my. So this bracket is trash.

Horrible trash. Did you put NC State in there as well? Because they're just making a real triangle party.

I stayed winning last night and then losing to Kentucky because I don't know why I decided to go with my heart in certain places and not in others. I'm not good at this, Brian. I'm not good at this. I don't think anyone is good at this.

That's probably true. Brian Murphy, WRAL sports investigative reporter at Murph's Turf on Twitter. Thank you, my man. All right, thanks, Adam. For the ones who work hard to ensure their crew can always go the extra mile and the ones who get in early so everyone can go home on time, there's Grainger, offering professional-grade supplies backed by product experts so you can quickly and easily find what you need. Plus, you can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you. Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. That's Grainger for the ones who get it done.