• ACC, Clemson, and Florida State settle litigation, Mar. 4, 2025
• FSU Petition to NC Supreme Court to Issue Writ of Certiorari filed May 17, 2024
• FSU Second Amended Legal Complaint filed May 16, 2024
• FSU Motion to Dismiss ACC’s Complaint in North Carolina, filed Feb. 7, 2024
• FSU Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss ACC’s Complaint, filed Feb. 7, 2024
• Amended Legal Complaint, filed Jan. 29, 2024
• University News Release, Dec. 22, 2023 (PDF)
• Letter to FSU Community, Dec. 22, 2023
• Legal Complaint, filed Dec. 22, 2023
• Board of Trustees meeting, Dec. 22, 2023
• 2013 ACC Grant of Rights Agreement
• 2016 Amendment to Grant of Rights
• ACC Manual (2020-2021)
ACC, Clemson, and Florida State settle litigation
Charlotte, NC, Clemson, SC, and Tallahassee, FL – (March 4, 2025) The ACC, Clemson University, and Florida State University announce today that they have resolved all ongoing legal disputes.
With this resolution, Clemson and Florida State will remain full members of the ACC, and the parties will dismiss all pending lawsuits in the states of Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.
As part of the settlement, the members of the ACC have agreed to build upon the previously announced success initiatives by creating an additional revenue distribution model that is based on viewership. The new and innovative model will continue to support the entire membership while adding a component directly focused on annual football and men’s basketball viewership. As with success initiatives, ACC member schools will have the opportunity to earn increased viewership distributions from the ACC’s media revenues and will be incentivized to take actions that enhance viewership across the ACC’s 18 member schools.
“Today’s resolution begins the next chapter of this storied league and further solidifies the ACC as a premier conference,” said ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, Ph.D. “As we look ahead to our collective long-term future, I want to express my deepest appreciation to the ACC Board of Directors for its ongoing leadership, patience and dedication throughout this process. The league has competed at the highest level for more than 70 years and this new structure demonstrates the ACC embracing innovation and further incentivizing our membership based on competition and viewership results. The settlements, coupled with the ACC’s continued partnership with ESPN, allow us to focus on our collective future – including Clemson and Florida State – united in an 18-member conference demonstrating the best in intercollegiate athletics.”
“This settlement allows Clemson to remain nationally competitive at the highest levels and also makes our conference stronger,” said Clemson University President Jim Clements, Ph.D. “I appreciate the efforts of the ACC members and Commissioner Phillips in the creation of this innovative conference model. We remain proud members of the ACC, one of the strongest conferences in the country and where our students, the other 17 ACC schools, and the league are committed to accomplishing greatness both on the field and in the classroom.”
“We’re very pleased to have reached a settlement that benefits not only Florida State, but the Atlantic Coast Conference as a whole,” said Florida State University President Richard McCullough, Ph.D. “From the start, we’ve held firm to the belief that the best solution would be one that enables FSU and every ACC institution to earn enhanced revenue through performance. I want to thank Commissioner Jim Phillips and my colleagues on the ACC Board of Directors for their leadership, and we look forward to continuing our membership in the ACC.”
About the ACC
In its 72nd year, and 18 members strong, the ACC stands as one of the most competitive and revered intercollegiate conferences in the nation. ACC members including Boston College, Cal, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Notre Dame, Pitt, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest are dedicated to upholding the league’s founding values of academic excellence, athletic competition at the highest level, and integrity. The ACC supports 28 NCAA sports, with 15 for women and 13 for men, and its member institutions span 12 states. In August 2019, the ACC and ESPN partnered to launch ACC Network (ACCN), a 24/7 national network exclusively devoted to ACC sports and original programming. For more information, visit theACC.com and follow the ACC on Instagram (@accsports), Twitter/X (@theACC) and Facebook (facebook.com/theACC).
STATEMENT FROM FSU BOARD OF TRUSTEES CHAIRMAN PETER COLLINS
“When this process began we were very clear about our reasons for pursuing litigation while remaining a constructive partner with the ACC and our fellow schools. I am very pleased that today’s settlement successfully addresses every issue we passionately advocated for. It is an innovative, thoughtful solution that allows FSU and the ACC to emerge stronger and better prepared to navigate the ever-changing environment we are in.”
STATEMENT FROM FSU VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS MICHAEL ALFORD
“This is a great path forward that provides every team in the conference the opportunity to reach benchmarks for additional financial distribution. FSU and the ACC have benefitted from more than 30 years of partnership. This solution, forged collaboratively by FSU, Clemson, and the ACC is a testament to our ability to work together to proactively address necessary actions for future success.”
Florida State Trustees sue ACC for mismanaging media rights and imposing ‘draconian’ exit fees
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Dec. 22, 2023) — The Florida State University Board of Trustees today filed suit against the Atlantic Coast Conference in response to years of mismanagement that has left its member schools trapped in a deteriorating multi-media rights agreement while preventing them from joining other conferences because of “draconian” withdrawal penalties.
The suit, filed in Leon County Circuit Court, says the ACC has failed to fulfill its stated obligations to “generate substantial revenues” and “maximize athletic opportunities” for its members. It details how the ACC’s mishandling of negotiations with ESPN has deprived members of tens of millions in annual revenues and put them behind other Power Four schools in the competition for educational advancement and to appear in elite athletic championships.
Rather than fix those problems, the lawsuit says, the ACC has tried to prevent its members from leaving the Conference by threatening to impose “draconian” withdrawal penalties of at least $572 million — the most onerous in collegiate sports.
The complaint accuses the ACC of restraint of trade, breach of contract and a failure to perform. It also challenges the legality of its withdrawal penalties.
FSU Board of Trustees Chairman Peter Collins said the lawsuit “represents the response to a long list of failures by the ACC, and while Florida State has challenged the ACC to be better for its members, the Conference has responded with inaction.”
“The underperformance by the ACC has ramped up dramatically in just the last few years,” said Collins. “The ACC has also unfairly — and we believe illegally — sought to prevent members from exploring their fundamental right to withdraw by threatening to impose an astounding and pernicious half-billion-dollar penalty. It’s simply unconscionable.”
Added FSU President Richard McCullough: “I fully support the Board’s decision to take this legal action against the ACC. It is becoming painfully apparent that Florida State’s athletic ambitions and institutional priorities are no longer served by the ACC’s leadership.”
The lawsuit says the College Football Playoff’s “stunning decision” to exclude the undefeated Seminoles from the 2024 championship “crystalizes” years of ACC failures that threaten the conference’s fiscal viability. Trustees said at a Board meeting today, however, that they’ve been considering taking legal action for more than a year because of the ACC’s overall mismanagement.
“The ACC has negotiated itself into a self-described ‘existential crisis,’ rendered itself fiscally unstable and substantially undermined its members’ capacity to compete at the elite level,” the lawsuit says. “In doing so, the ACC violated the contractual, fiduciary and legal duties it owed its members.”
The ACC struck its initial media rights agreement with ESPN in 2011 and renegotiated it in 2012 to include a schedule of annual Tier I cash payments for nationally broadcast football games through 2027. ACC members currently receive roughly $33 million each in Tier I payments and payments for regionally broadcast games.
Rather than wait to negotiate better terms in 2027, however, the ACC granted ESPN a unilateral option to extend the Tier I contract until 2036 without receiving additional compensation.
Yet at the same time, ESPN was negotiating shorter, more lucrative contracts with the other conferences. Under those contracts, the rival conferences have opened a revenue gap of tens of millions of dollars a year, putting the ACC at a disadvantage in both fiscal impact and prestige.
Rather than fix those problems, the ACC has taken steps to prevent schools from defecting to conferences with the more lucrative broadcast contracts, the lawsuit says.
It adopted a secretly developed Grant of Rights provision that obligated members to forfeit their media rights through 2036 if they were to leave the Conference. While the provision doesn’t put a value on those, they are currently worth at least $442 million, the lawsuit says. FSU agreed to the extension in 2016, the lawsuit says, based on the ACC’s verbal claim that ESPN had threatened to walk away from the conference without the concession.
The ACC also ramped up its “severe withdrawal fees,” to three times its annual operating budget or $130 million. Added to the loss of broadcast rights, a school now faces a cumulative withdrawal penalty of $572 million in fees and forfeited revenues.
The ACC continued to erode its media rights position by rushing to admit three new schools with weak media rights values, dimming the prospect of the ACC winning significant increases in revenue payments when its contract is up for renewal.
FSU Athletic Director Michael Alford said he supported the Board’s action, adding that “this filing became necessary due to an unwillingness by the ACC and some of our fellow conference members to seriously consider remedies for this situation. It is with great regret that we enter this phase, but it has become clear that we have no other recourse.”
Florida State University is represented by a team of attorneys at Greenberg Traurig, LLP, led by David Ashburn, managing shareholder of the firm’s Tallahassee office.