There’s is no turning back now. Florida State wants out of ACC and eventually, they will be They will either leave on their own, or the entire conference model gets blown up, but one way or another this partnership will end.
Exactly how and when are the questions. It could be anywhere from 2 years from now or 12.
Should the ACC fight to the bitter end or figure out a to settle with Florida State?
This is a tough question. I think there are pros and cons to both.
Fighting FSU
The ACC is not responsible to FSU. They have 17.5 other members to account for, and even if you include others looking to leave, that’s still more than half you are working for. If that weren’t the case SMU, Cal, and Stanford wouldn’t have been added by an 11-3 vote.
I am not a lawyer so I won’t play Twitter lawyer year, but I don’t think anyone will say the GOR will be easy to break. Why should the conference acquiesce to Florida State? Who knows what the landscape will look like in 5 years?
What if the GOR is somehow invalidated? This is a risk of fighting it. The ACC gets nothing, and anyone leaves at will. It also be a landmark decision as no conference will able to be bound in the future. Conferences would have no negotiating power with networks because they can’t guarantee any lifecycle for the duration of a deal. If you want the current model busted across the board, this would do it.
Settling with FSU
Who wants to deal with a disgruntled member for years? The public airing of dissastification is a bad look for the ACC, and doesn’t help any of the existing members that want to leave or those that even want to stay.
Now you don’t let FSU out on the cheap, at $572 Million maybe you let them out for number still significantly high enough to discourage a mass exodus. Oklahoma and Texas left for a near combined $100 Million or $50 Million each with a year left on their GOR. This is about 65% of the full amount to exit if fully enforced. Should the ACC settle for something similar that would $371 Million for FSU, which shrinks a little with each passing year. So if the Florida State leaves in 2-4 years, you could settle for over $300 Million. That’s still a massive number, split among remaining members. If there are a few more we could be talking a billion dollar windfall for the remaining teams.
The ACC could pay it out over several years too, so anyone else that wants to leave forfeits that.
If I’m Jim Phillips and the ACC, I fight this tooth and nail for the next year to see how the early litigation goes.
You don’t have to decide now.
