Florida State AD Michael Alford explains why teams researched Grant of Rights terms

This week, the ACC met for its spring meetings. There, it was reported that seven ACC schools have been meeting with lawyers to figure out how “unbreakable” the conference’s Grant of Rights deal is. Florida State is among those teams. The school’s athletic director Michael Alford explained that the school needed to find out information about this Grant of Rights.

While speaking to the media at ACC spring meetings, Alford was asked if the schools looking at the conference’s Grant of Rights were just doing their due diligence or if there was something more to it.

“When you look at the national landscape, you’ve got to get an understanding of what the Grant of Rights was,” Michael Alford said. “And that’s, I mean, I can only speak for my institution and I think all the institutions have been in there at some point. I’m not sure and I can’t talk to them about, I mean, speak on their behalf.

As Alford explained, he and Florida State feel that they need to take a better look at the Grant of Rights. That way, they understand it fully and know their options with it.

“But I know we thought it was our due diligence to go and examine it. Look at it. Get a review. Get advice on exactly what it means and what’s the triggers, what’s the dates. We just need to find that information out.”

In basic terms, a Grant of Rights  is a clause or agreement in a media contract that transfers media rights for a set period of time. In the ACC’s case, it gives the conference control of televised sporting events on campus. It goes through 2036, locking teams into the conference through that time.

Along with Florida State, Miami, Clemson, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia Tech, and Virginia have reportedly been exploring options with the Grant of Rights.

This isn’t the first time issues with the Grant of Rights has come up for Florida State. In February, Michael Alford brought the issue to the Florida State Board of Trustees.

The concern for these schools is that they should be making more money than they are right now. In particular, the SEC and Big Ten have massive media deals. Alford says there is a $30 million gap between those conferences and ACC schools. This makes it difficult to compete with them and is why ACC schools are so concerned about their Grant of Rights.

Michael Alford thinks the ACC is moving closer to a new revenue sharing model

One thing that Michael Alford has been pushing for the ACC to move to a new revenue sharing model. In that model, schools like Florida State would receive an uneven distribution of the conference’s revenue. That would, obviously, be good for the Seminoles but bad for one of the schools receiving less.

“I’m very optimistic. They have really taken a proactive approach to this. They understand the issues. They’ve brought some various models to us that are being very aggressive, and that’s something as a league we need to look at so we make sure we’re keeping pace with our peers out there,” Alford said.

“That we are continuing to fund our programs at a championship level.”