Michael Alford reaffirms Florida State's commitment to ACC: 'We're together'

As the ACC meetings in Amelia Island, Fla., have progressed this week, talks over a new revenue distribution model and the implications from the league’s Grant of Rights continue to take shape.

But after significant reporting about the potential for some of the ACC schools to break the Grant of Rights, Florida State athletics director Michael Alford called that speculation “overblown.”

He’s been one of the most harsh critics of the ACC’s current revenue distribution model.

“I think some of that is a lot overblown,” Alford said on Tuesday. “The future of the ACC, in that room we’re together and we’re coming up with providing solutions to one another. So I think a lot of that was overblown by others. Fine. But in that room and amongst our commissioner and amongst us we’re together and we’re trying to find solutions for one another.”

The crux of the issue is that several of the larger schools in the conference with major television pull feel they’re not being adequately compensated by the league.

As other leagues like the Big Ten and the SEC are set to reap a real windfall in TV rights deals in the coming years, the ACC is stuck in an agreement that runs through 2036. That could leave the program’s schools facing as much as a $30 million gap annually in revenue distribution when compared to those leagues.

Thus the push by schools like Florida State to fully understand the league’s TV deal and the conference’s Grant of Rights.

“When you’re looking at national landscape you’ve got to get an understanding of what the Grant of Rights was,” Alford said. “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 speak on their behalf, but I know we thought it was our due diligence to go and examine it, look at it, get it reviewed, get advice on what exactly it means and what’s the triggers, what’s the dates. We just needed to find that information out.”

Even head football coach Mike Norvell chimed in on the revenue distribution discussion, issuing a caution of sorts.

The driving force behind potential changes is primarily football, but the decisions made will impact all college athletics for these programs, not just football.

“We hear and it’s talked about, of potential,” Norvell said. “I think that’s one of those factors that can be really scary for college athletics. When it comes to college football, I don’t know if it goes to revenue sharing, I think there’s — football’s not the sport that will probably suffer from that. It’s every other sport that maybe doesn’t generate profits.

“It’s going to be in extreme jeopardy if those things continue to go the way they could go.”