Florida State, ACC court date set for April in Leon County

The first hearing in the Florida State Board of Trustees’ lawsuit against the ACC in Leon County has been set, according to a new court filing on Monday.

The motion hearing set for 9:30 a.m. ET on April 9 will allow Judge John C. Cooper to hear the ACC’s motion to dismiss or stay Florida State’s case. As part of the dueling lawsuits between the two parties, the first hearing in the battle between FSU and the ACC is scheduled for March 22 in North Carolina.

The ACC filed a brief last week in North Carolina opposing Florida State’s motion to dismiss or stay. In the filing, the conference made its argument for why the lawsuit should be heard in the state of North Carolina, emphasizing it is where the contract should be decided.

The two sides are battling in court over the ACC’s Grant of Rights, which Florida State is trying to get out of to leave the conference. FSU believes that it should be allowed to leave the ACC without penalty, despite agreeing to the grant of rights in 2013.

A grant of rights agreement gives conferences the right to broadcast all member schools’ home games for the duration of the media rights deal. In the ACC’s case, the GOR binds the league, schools and broadcast partners until the rights deal with ESPN expires in 2036. 

Other ACC schools have examined the document and any wiggle room that may exist if they want to jump to another league. One longtime ACC official told On3 over the summer that the league’s GOR is “ironclad.” Another prominent source with deep ACC ties also stressed that the league believes the grant of rights agreement is virtually unbreakable.

Florida State could negotiate buyout

In early February, the ACC filed a motion to dismiss Florida State’s lawsuit. A key argument was the state of Florida does not have jurisdiction, instead, the ACC’s home of North Carolina does. This will be a crucial piece of April’s hearing.

In that filing, the ACC laid out that Florida State could ultimately buy back its TV rights from the league.

“If Florida State wishes to regain control of the rights before the end of the term, it could attempt to repurchase them,” the filing stated. “But having to buy back a right which was assigned is not a penalty; it is simply a commercial possibility. Paying a fair price for rights that were previously transferred cannot be a ‘penalty’ under any reasonable definition of the term.”

According to On3’s Andy Staples, that buyout number sits somewhere between $150 million and a $572 ceiling. Still, the Florida State Board of Trustees could make the decision negotiating the buyout is worthwhile. The Seminoles would eventually make the money back through a larger TV payout in the Big Ten or SEC. And even though those two super conferences do not appear to be on the market, they will be if an attractive brand like Florida State hits free agency.

“It’s not a matter of if we leave [the ACC], in my opinion. It’s a matter of who and when we leave,” Board of Trustees member and former FSU quarterback Drew Weatherford said in August.