Clemson’s Lawsuit Turns Up the Heat on an ACC Already in Hot Water

The Tigers joined Florida State in a fight against the conference over media rights and exit fees.

Clemson has long been content to sit just outside the ring and watch Florida State very publicly and very loudly fight the same fight it was also ready to wage. It doesn’t mean the schools had dissimilar goals, but it does mean they had dissimilar tacts.

You couldn’t watch a Clemson board of trustees meeting on YouTube like you could FSU’s to see Seminoles administrators both inside and outside of athletics talk openly about the need to leave the ACC over a year ago. But after watching and waiting, the Tigers have finally joined the Noles in suing the ACC on a parallel legal track. It turns the heat up on a league that was already in hot water.

Clemson filed a lawsuit against the ACC on Tuesday over exit fees and media rights :: Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports

The main points of Clemson’s legal argument are: the penalty fee the ACC would impose upon it if it left the league (potentially $500 million or more) is unenforceable and Clemson could leave the league and still control the media rights for its games. The fact they signed a document granting the ACC control of those rights through at least 2027 is where the term “Grant of Rights” comes from. ESPN has the option to extend its television deal and the grant of rights through ’36 but must do so by February ’25. It’s unclear if the grant of rights extends through ’36 no matter what happens to the TV deal. In a statement, Clemson maintains that it has not left the conference at the current moment, but said it has “no choice but to move forward with this lawsuit.”

The ACC, obviously, is committed to holding them to the agreement:

pic.twitter.com/2czOHMIsrX

— The ACC (@theACC) March 19, 2024

And why shouldn’t the ACC stand its ground? It behooves the league to drag this whole thing to hell and back through the legal system both with Clemson and Florida State.

Beyond the legal theatrics, there’s a leverage angle at play here. Clemson and FSU were joined by Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia and Virginia Tech in looking at the grant of rights last spring. It stands to reason that five of those schools that have yet to sue the league could file their own legal actions in the near future. It ratchets up how precarious one of college sports’ two middle-class leagues feels. The end goal from the schools’ side likely looks like a forced settlement where the ACC gives the schools a number to leave, and the schools can then find a way to meet it through bonds or private equity or a Girl Scout bake sale. But right now, the schools can only estimate the worst case, which FSU’s lawsuit does. Noles brass came up with the number $572 million unless they won in court to get it whittled down.

But if the league gives the schools a number, they’d probably bounce tomorrow. The ACC can try to just jam this up in court for as long as possible at which case who knows what form college sports will even take. That scenario, however, is one that does not sit terribly well with the Noles or Tigers, but the agreement is one both schools voluntarily signed years ago. These lawsuits are the legal equivalent of saying the deal we signed was fine then but stinks now and we want out. And if Florida State has made any headway in its angling to leave the league, then it would benefit Clemson not to stay on the sideline anymore. Now the question is if any other ACC schools are going to start to get antsy.