On Friday, the Florida State Seminoles announced their intent to challenge the ACC’s Grant of Rights and explore leaving the conference. And the ACC was quite not at all happy about that move from the school.
Following the team’s announcement, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and Chair of the ACC Board of Directors Jim Ryan released a pretty brutal statement where they rebuked Florida State’s efforts to leave the conference and made it clear that they believe the conference’s Grant of Rights will hold up in court.
“Florida State’s decision to file action against the Conference is in direct conflict with their longstanding obligations and is a clear violation of their legal commitments to the other members of the Conference. All ACC members, including Florida State, willingly and knowingly re-signed the current Grant of Rights in 2016, which is wholly enforceable and binding through 2036. Each university has benefited from this agreement, receiving millions of dollars in revenue and neither Florida State nor any other institution, has ever challenged its legitimacy.
“As a league, we are proud of the successes of our student-athletes and that the ACC has won the most NCAA National Championships over the past two and half years while also achieving the highest graduation success and academic performance rates among all FBS conferences, so it is especially disappointing that FSU would choose to pursue this unprecedented and overreaching approach.
“We are confident that the Grant of Rights, which has been honored by all other universities who signed similar agreements, will be affirmed by the courts and the Conference’s legal counsel will vigorously enforce the agreement in the best interests of the ACC’s current and incoming members.”
It looks like this is setting up for a major court battle between the ACC and Florida State. This is only the beginning.
[On3]
