WARCHANT TV -- Florida State Board of Trustees chairman Collins recaps wild 2023-24 year for FSU athletics

To say Florida State University and its Board of Trustees have been actively a part of college athletics’ biggest storylines in 2023-24 would be an understatement.

In the past seven months, the university has been at the center of the largest College Football Playoff controversy since the organization’s inception in 2014. Florida State has also waged legal battles against the Atlantic Coast Conference in two states in an effort to hop on board with one of college football’s two power player leagues.

And in the middle of those important conversations are a few university power brokers, like Board of Trustees chairman Peter Collins.

In an address to the Capital Tiger Bay Club in Tallahassee on June 24, Collins reflected openly about his front-row seat for the roller coaster ride Florida State athletics has been and is currently going through.

Below are Collins’ comments from the speaking engagement on a host of topics. At the bottom of this page is a video presentation of the event, granted to Warchant courtesy of the Capital Tiger Bay Club.

On the ACC’s response to Florida State playoff snub

“I’m not going to get into the blame game, I’m just going to say I think our leadership in the conference could have done a little better job on the lead-up to that. Because there was another conference on ESPN every single day saying that  ‘we’re better, we’re better, we’re better.’

“They said it was Sesame Street, you know,  ‘one of these things doesn’t look like the other’ which is just ridiculous. And there was silence. And then after the snub happened there was, I don’t know, maybe a three sentence quote put out and then nothing but silence since.

“Not the University’s complaint, that’s my complaint.”

On the Board of Trustees decision to move forward with a lawsuit

“Let me back up and say this effort didn’t start from the snub and we had been working on this in earnest for a while. You just don’t put a complaint like that together in two weeks, right?  But we were still working with the ACC on equal revenue distribution et cetera, et cetera, and only when it became clear that we just weren’t going to get to where we needed to be through that effort –  and I’m not breaking news here – that they weren’t interested in in continuing to help us and get better in that effort… it just felt like the time was right. There was no reason to wait any longer.”

…

“I look at it as like an NIL thing. The athletes said, ‘Hey, I should get paid for my name, image and likeness.’ I think Florida State should get paid for its name image and likeness and we are woefully underpaid.”

On what would success look like for Florida State against the ACC

“I’ll say it like this: I think our ultimate goal is to get paid for what we’re worth. I’ll leave it at that.”

On whether other university lawsuits benefit FSU

“I mean, the law is what the law is. You know, it’s a little different from state to state but it’s really an antitrust case it at the end of the day. It’s an antitrust case. … I think if you looked at our lawsuit and you looked at Clemson’s lawsuit you’d see 90-percent similar in the law.”

Audience question about harboring any ‘inner rage’ against the ACC

“At the end of the day we are worth more than we are getting paid. A lot more than we are getting paid. And I think for every Seminole they get upset about that. And I would challenge anybody to tell me that we’re not– to tell me that we’re worth the same amount as some of the other schools in the [ACC] from a media standpoint…I think by our underpayment, they’re getting overpaid. How’s that?”

Talk about this story with other die-hard Florida State football fans on the Tribal Council.