New Report Reveals Seven Schools Actively Exploring Circumventing ACC's Grant of Rights

There is no choice for the Seminoles but to leave the ACC with the growing revenue gap in college football.

Collegiate athletics is in the midst of its largest shake-up in decades as countless programs are set to move conferences in the near future. Of the confirmed conference shake-ups, BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF will make their Big 12 debuts beginning in 2023 while Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA are all locked in to join the American Athletic Conference (AAC) in the same season. 

Soon thereafter, 2024 will see the likes of Oklahoma and Texas leaving the Big 12 for the SEC and the University of Southern California and UCLA joining the ranks of the Big Ten. The mass realignment has prompted both individual programs and entire conferences to engage in discussions about their fidelity and sustainability, which, in turn, has prompted speculation and hearsay over which dominos are the next to fall.

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The Power 5 conferences (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and ACC) have all been attempting to navigate the ever-changing landscape in this apparent “arms race.” The SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12 all responded by acquiring new programs while the Pac-12 and ACC have been left to fend off the vultures, so to speak. 

Earlier this week, Brett McMurphy of ActionNetworkHQ reported that current Pac-12 members Oregon and Washington have been “vetted and cleared” to join the Big Ten; a move that would bring the total count of programs leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten up to four. Now, it would appear as though certain members of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) have seen enough and are actively exploring the possibility of leaving the ACC behind.

On Monday, a new report surfaced that the following ACC schools have met in the past several months in an attempt to examine the grant of rights and determine just how unbreakable it is; Florida State, Clemson, Miami, UNC, NC State, Virginia and Virginia Tech.

Clemson, FSU, Miami, UNC, NC State, Virginia & Virginia Tech are “The Magnificent 7” ACC schools, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. These schools, @RossDellenger reported, have met in past several months, w/lawyers examining grant-of-rights to determine just how unbreakable it is.…

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 15, 2023

The desire to leave the ACC amidst the larger conference realignment has grown exponentially for many of these programs, Florida State among them. However, experts believe the current “grant-of-rights” (GOR) deal with the ACC to be the only thing holding the likes of “The Magnificent Seven” from having already left. 

Put simply, the ACC’s current media rights deal gives the ACC all of the revenue from home events on the campuses of its member schools and it will remain in place until 2036. Whereas the television deals for the SEC and Big Ten pay out to schools at about $54 million and $46 million, respectively, the ACC deal is reportedly paying out at around $36 million annually in what has been called “one of the most network-favorable deals on the planet.” 

The fear among ACC member schools, however, is that SEC and Big Ten programs could soon reach pay outs upwards of $100 million annually while the ACC is locked into its current deal until 2036 and will be forcing its member schools to play catch up.

At the ACC’s spring meetings just the other day, Michael Alford, Director of Athletics at Florida State University, commented on the nature of the ACC deal relative to the wider college football landscape: “If you look at revenue projections, they should have a better agreement than we have by going out to market. That means there’s going to be another school in the state that’s going to have a better agreement than Miami and us. And that’s just not acceptable to us.”

Initial speculation placed the ACC’s exit fee at around $120 million, but member schools have since called certain aspects of the GOR into question in an attempt to legally bypass the current contract and properly engage in conference realignment. 

Although many believed a lengthy legal battle to be expensive and ill-advised at first, McMurphy’s recent report suggests that the “Magnificent 7” schools could be pooling their legal resources in an attempt to combat the current GOR predicament head-on before it’s too late. 

It's no secret that Florida State is doing its homework on leaving the ACC. NoleGameday reported in July of 2022 that the Seminoles had discussions with the Big Ten and SEC about changing conferences.

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