Report: Florida State Board of Trustees calls emergency meeting to discuss future in ACC

Florida State appears to be taking the first steps towards potentially exiting the ACC, reigniting a plan to potentially get out of an ironclad grant-of-rights deal with the conference that goes through 2036.

The Florida State Board of Trustees have set an emergency meeting Friday morning, according to Warchant, with potential discussions about the future of the school and its membership with the ACC, according to the Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach and Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.

“Florida State has scheduled an emergency meeting of its Board of Trustees for Friday morning, the first concrete step needed in any effort to enable the school to take legal action against the Atlantic Coast Conference,” the Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reported Thursday morning.

Dellenger confirmed that the school’s conference situation will be a topic of discussion and legal action could be taken as a result: “At a meeting Friday, FSU Board of Trustees will discuss the Seminoles’ conference future, and the result of the meeting is expected to produce a legal filing serving as an initial step in an exit from ACC’s Grant-of-Rights, sources tell YahooSports.”

FSU has been flirting with leaving the conference since last summer’s conference realignment unheaval that saw the collapse of the Pac-12 when 10 programs left for the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC respectively. That desire to find a more favorable conference situation was only exacerbated when an undefeated and ACC champion Florida State was left out of the College Football Playoff due to a late-season injury to starting quarterback Jordan Travis and the perception the ACC isn’t as strong a conference as the Big Ten and SEC.

Per Auerbach, the ACC’s grant-of-rights is a “legally binding document that controls the publicity rights of a conference’s member schools and extends throughout the length of the ACC’s media rights deal with ESPN, which runs through 2036.”

That’s a long time, and Florida State certainly seems antsy to get out of the conference before then. Certain FSU board members have already come out and essentially said they’re trying to get out of the conference.

Auerbach notes that one board member, Trustee Justin Roth, “called for FSU to make and execute an exit plan to get out of the ACC by August 2024” back in August of 2023 when several of the school’s board members initially spoke out.

Another trustee and former quarterback with the program, Drew Weatherford, said at the time: “It’s not a matter of if we leave (the ACC), in my opinion. It’s a matter of how and when we leave. Not everyone may agree with that, but I feel really strongly about it.”

That was in August. Now it appears FSU is restarting those discussions with Friday’s board meeting.