Florida State's Board of Trustees Unanimously Approves Legal Complaint Against ACC In Circuit Court

The Seminoles are prepared to challenge the ACC's Grant of Rights in court.

Florida State is taking its future into its own hands after becoming the first undefeated "Power Five" Conference Champion to be snubbed from the College Football Playoff. Over the last couple of weeks, the Seminoles have publicly expressed their anger about the decision and dissatisfaction with the response from the committee, ACC, and member schools.

Three days before Christmas, FSU's administration took action during an emergency Board of Trustees meeting that featured key figures such as President Richard McCullough, Athletic Director Michael Alford, and Chairman Peter Collins. Outside legal counsel through Greenberg Traurig, LLP, and David Ashburn revealed plans to file a complaint in circuit court against the ACC.

The complaint consists of six key aspects:

1. Violation of Florida Law - Antitrust  (severe withdrawal penalty)

2. Unenforceable Penalty (Grant of Rights combined with severe withdrawal penalty are unenforceable)

3. Breach of Contract (due to television rights)

4. Breach of Fiduciary Duty (ACC failed to act in the best interest of its members)

5. Fundamental Failure of Contractual Purpose 

6. Unconscionability and Violation of Public Policy

Following a detailed presentation by Ashburn that went into the intricacies of the legal complaint, Florida State's Board of Trustees unanimously approved a lawsuit to be filed in circuit court in Tallahassee directly following the conclusion of the meeting.

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"This obviously is an extremely serious matter. I want to make sure that everyone understands that I fully support the board's decision. We've been working on this for a long time and making this consideration, I said from the very beginning that all options are on the table for Florida State University to maximize our potential," McCullough said. "As a fiduciary for this university, I find that after exploring all options I feel that we are left with only this option as a way to maximize our potential as an athletics option and it's best for Florida State University. We've been working on this for probably over a year now. It is difficult because the contracts are not available to us and so if we want to view them we have to go to the conference office and look at them which I don't really understand exactly why somebody would operate in that way. One wonders if that's a protection mechanism or what. It takes a lot of work. when we view these contracts, we can't make copies of them so it's lugubrious for us to do this investigation."

"This is certainly not where I would've preferred to end up, I think I would've preferred a different pathway but I feel that we have in many ways exhausted all of our options because these things are timely," McCullough continued. "You can't wish and hope that somehow they'll get fixed and then a year, two, three, four, five, by that time I don't think we'll be competitive. The bottom line is there's no reason to hide it. Collegiate sports is supported by financial revenue that comes into the university and that revenue supports the ability of our programs to compete at the highest levels. It's just factual and that it the situation that we have."

"For us to remain competitive, I think, in 20 years, we've obviously shown that we can compete with the best of them and we're denied a CFP spot. Obviously, we did our part but we missed the CFP Invitational so it's time for us to try and do something about it," McCullough added. "This is not a reaction. This is something that we've done a lot of due diligence on, that we've spent a lot of time looking at very carefully, and we've considered all the aspects. At the end of the day, as David so wonderfully presented to us, it's not reasonable to freely decide the fate of our athletics program. Without that, that means we're essentially bound by this onerous penalty which was created superficially by the ACC. I wish that we were in a different position and a different place but we are not and we needed to do what's best for this university and our athletics department."

The current ACC Grant of Rights agreement is in place until 2036 and would require a penalty estimated to be north of $572 million to depart for a new conference. Florida State believes they have found the basis to challenge the Atlantic Coast Conference in court.

The Seminoles are at risk of falling behind programs in the SEC or Big Ten by a growing revenue gap of $30 million or more for the next 13 years. The two conferences will also go back to the negotiating table for another media deal before the ACC.

Florida State has previously pushed the conference for unequal revenue distribution based on TV numbers and viewership while also voting 'no' on the upcoming additions of Stanford, Cal, and SMU to the league. 

That push has turned into a full-on fight for Florida State to remain competitive and a top program in the current landscape.

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