MEGA Conference Realignment and lawsuits Megathread: Stories, Tales, Lies, and Exaggerations

Why would ESPN increase the payouts if they don't have to? How could the ACC annoy them? It looks to me like ESPN holds all the cards. They determine whether to continue on with the current agreement by the end of next month. If they agree to continue it, the ACC is locked in till 2036 to that TV contract. What could the ACC do?

espn is under no obligation, but there is still a question of whether the tv contract ends in 2027 or 2036. The focus of the lawsuits hasn’t been on espn yet, it’s the ACC teams suing the ACC. As far as I have seen, the ACC itself hasn’t brought a lawsuit against espn trying to invalidate the extension of the GOR. FSU hinted at the grounds for saying the extension is invalid when it amended the complaint against the ACC saying Swofford was self dealing when negotiating the extension (and I think it’s clear he was”) and cost the ACC schools tens of millions of dollars.

Wouldn’t be completely out of the question for a court to agree Swofford breached his fiduciary duty to the ACC through the self dealing. Now that wouldn’t necessarily void the contract between the ACC and ESPN, but it would be a major embarrassment. It sets the stage for a follow on lawsuit where ACC schools will say espn knew full well that Swofford was self dealing , but didn’t inform ACC schools or terminate the negotiation because they were getting an incredible bargain (Swoffords priority was making sure his son got paid).

espn might decide it doesn’t want to have its dirty laundry aired or risk a court saying extension is invalid and tv deal ends in 2027. They compromise with ACC, conference gets a higher payout through 2030. After 2030 there is going to be a seismic shift anyways so it’s the increase in payouts over the next 5 years is kind of a down payment. They can always try to claw some of it back with the next deal (like sec teams get 100% payouts in megaconference, ACC teams gets
90% payouts for the first 5 years).

It wouldn’t make shareholders happy if the ACC directly sued espn. Disney stock is already in the toilet. The couple hundred or so million espn might add to the tv payouts through 2030 to placate the ACC is chump change compared to the amount lost if Disney stock plunges 3-5% due the news that a major conference in cfb has proof espn collaborated with the acc commissioner to ***** the acc.
 
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- Not sure about day of prep issue, multiple threads to pull on that sweater
- I believe Sankey views ND already as de facto member of B1G
- I believe Sankey doesn't like what he sees at all with no SEC Natty Champion...because that is their birthright...
- I believe the rush to 14/16 format might have lost some momentum as Fiesta Bowl was not a sellout...Orange probably not either...but TV revenue probably big $$$$$
-- Do Bowls just go buh-bye for playoffs and higher seed gets home field game until Natty?
What's funny is those are the bowl games where you get the fewest number of opt-outs and they are still having attendance issues because of the number of playoff games to fly to for fans.

If your team is successful, how many people can afford or have the time off available from work to go on 3 trips in a 6 week span to watch their team play?

No one's going to want to go to non-playoff bowl games because half the teams sit out and no one's going to want to go to the quarterfinal bowls because if you're saving up, you want to go to the NC game or semi-finals even before the quarters. Real braintrusts operating CFB right now.
 
espn is under no obligation, but there is still a question of whether the tv contract ends in 2027 or 2036. The focus of the lawsuits hasn’t been on espn yet, it’s the ACC teams suing the ACC. As far as I have seen, the ACC itself hasn’t brought a lawsuit against espn trying to invalidate the extension of the GOR. FSU hinted at the grounds for saying the extension is invalid when it amended the complaint against the ACC saying Swofford was self dealing when negotiating the extension (and I think it’s clear he was”) and cost the ACC schools tens of millions of dollars.

Wouldn’t be completely out of the question for a court to agree Swofford breached his fiduciary duty to the ACC through the self dealing. Now that wouldn’t necessarily void the contract between the ACC and ESPN, but it would be a major embarrassment. It sets the stage for a follow on lawsuit where ACC schools will say espn knew full well that Swofford was self dealing , but didn’t inform ACC schools or terminate the negotiation because they were getting an incredible bargain (Swoffords priority was making sure his son got paid).

espn might decide it doesn’t want to have its dirty laundry aired or risk a court saying extension is invalid and tv deal ends in 2027. They compromise with ACC, conference gets a higher payout through 2030. After 2030 there is going to be a seismic shift anyways so it’s the increase in payouts over the next 5 years is kind of a down payment. They can always try to claw some of it back with the next deal (like sec teams get 100% payouts in megaconference, ACC teams gets
90% payouts for the first 5 years).

It wouldn’t make shareholders happy if the ACC directly sued espn. Disney stock is already in the toilet. The couple hundred or so million espn might add to the tv payouts through 2030 to placate the ACC is chump change compared to the amount lost if Disney stock plunges 3-5% due the news that a major conference in cfb has proof espn collaborated with the acc commissioner to ***** the acc.
That's my point. ESPN is under no obligation. They can choose to keep the ACC TV contract or just drop it and move on. Unless there is solid proof ESPN did not negotiate the tv deal with the ACC in good faith (I doubt it), what do they care?

Why would the ACC's inability to control its own commissioner be an embarrassment to ESPN? A deal that every university signed off on. It isn't like ESPN negotiated a bad deal with a 15 year old kid. It's a frickin' college sports conference with a team of lawyers. The conference consisting of universities with not only huge legal teams of their own, but most with entire law schools! Shame on them for signing a bad deal - all 15 of them (at the time).

I'd say if there is even a hint of evidence they colluded in any way with Swofford, the ACC is cut loose next month by ESPN. The ACC Channel becomes the SEC Channel 2 and we can all watch the Irish wooden spoons, Snuggie, and flex tape commercials we would be missing on the ACC Network during the Florida vs. Kentucky women's gymnastics meet instead.
 
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It’s over, Johnny.
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So where'd we leave off with getting out of the ACC aka saving the program. Is there still an outside chance this can happen? havent been following

Our admin STILL hasn’t SUED making the first move necessary to get out of this **** conference

which surely means we got 4D CHESS going on and the B10 is going to pick US up any day now. Our Pop Tart bowl game numbers PROVE IT.

Convo continuing in my DMs
 
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