He’s so full of ****. Has a little info, then runs into all sorts of speculation presented as fact, turns into a ***** when questioned. If he just said here’s what I’m hearing, now here is pure informed speculation and what if opinion, he wouldn’t be lying that he never said there would be a complete p2 breakaway NOW which he did say, as opposed to what has become (for now) a separation tier within same construct.
Not a lawyer but lot of contract adjacent experience and I don’t think this is as pure and clean cut as some like
@Rickd are saying because there are multiple parties and issues here to determine that so perhaps a real lawyer or two on here can comment:
- ACC member institutions give their media rights to the conference to then negotiate the rights to collectively for a deal- Miami does not directly give ESPN their rights as an example if I’m not mistaken even if practical application we do
- ESPN negotiates with ACC for a media rights deal and has the right to expect that the ACC has the rights (“apparent authority” ) to do so on members behalf and from a day to day perspective until recently would see that to be true by the fact they have exercised those acquired rights for years with no objection
- the acc bylaws in fact required the organization get a 2/3 vote approval for the agreement initially and then for any adjustment to it like extending a deadline to exercise an option to extend rights, in this case to 2036
- the ACC admitted in court filing if being read right that no such vote happened
- it also appears that until recently most if not all members were even aware that the rights from 2027-2036 were not locked in, which brings up transparency issues with their member organizations (let alone unrelated fiduciary responsibility the acc had around raycom issue)
So it’s possible (I think) that the issue is espn has a legal deal in place and reasonable expectations of it being followed, along side fsu in this case having an issue about bylaws- in both cases it’s the ACC (which
is its members concurrently) that can be sued. Hence court or settlement. The amendment issue makes fsu case stronger against ACC but doesn’t necessarily make espn contract enforcement weaker.
Rickd is well meaning but he is inadvertently becoming Dan Sileo Jr, Esquire. I love his optimism but virtually everything he saying is what FSU fans are telling themselves on their fan sites. I'm sure FSU bird lawyers have dissected everything and found the magic bullet that gets FSU out of the ACC plus a billion dollars of damages for pain and suffering. If only it were so easy. The courts may eventually decide the amendment didn't follow proper procedure so it is illegal and void , but that is not a guarantee and is certainly not true at this moment.
ESPN / Disney lawyers are not as dumb as many want to believe. They didn't fork over hundreds of millions to the ACC and then get bamboozled because they didn't properly execute the contract amendment.
From the beginning, both bird lawyers and real lawyers (I am the rare combo of being an expert in Bird Law and also a real lawyer) have said the same thing about FSUs lawsuit - its goal all along has been to air enough dirty laundry to get the acc to settle. Who knows, FSU may even have a signed deposition from Santa Claus claiming that the ACC is on his naughty list. They haven't even determined the venue yet. That alone has had the lawyers on both sides charging lots of hours. The ACC could drag it on for years. And that's without involving Disney, and Disney could make life difficult for everyone.
But for the sake of argument, lets say there is eventually a settlement between the acc and FSU. That does not end the GOR. The settlement is between the acc and FSU only, not the acc and every team. The precedent it will set is that each team that wants out will need to separately negotiate the cost of its media rights, because each team has a different value to the conference. They will also HAVE to sue individually because the acc knows that if all the top teams leave, it ends the conference. The ACC will dig in harder to keep everyone else.
The more top teams that leave, the higher the chances that espn will sue the conference. Remember that even if all the internal shenanigans (e.g. allegedly bypassing the proper voting procedures etc) are true, that's the ACCs problem, not espns. As far as espn is concerned (and almost certainly the perspective of most courts in contract law), a deal is a deal. It's not espns job to make sure the acc is following its bylaws to the letter. It legitimately thought the acc commissioner had the authority to sign the deal (called "apparent authority" in contract law) and the acc is going to be on the hook for breach of contract, especially if the top teams leave for the B1G / Fox Sports.
So that brings me to the likely end game. The acc does not want to get sued by espn. Top teams want out. The small market acc teams don't want to let the top schools go because it ends the conference. There is one path of least resistance that makes almost every party feel better. The one aspect of the tv deal that somewhat ties espns hands and helps the acc is that the deal says that espn can't renegotiate the tv deal unless the number of acc teams drops below 15. Doesn't say which teams have to be part of that 15. Acc took care of losing a couple teams and still staying above 15 by recently adding 3 teams. It is entirely conceivable that espn tells the acc:
"We are fine with letting Clemson and FSU go the SEC because we still make money off them. They are obviously more valuable to the ACC than the SEC. But to sweeten the pot for everyone else, when we extend the tv deal in 2025 we will kick in extra 100 million per year into your new performance based distribution model so that the top 4 acc teams can get as much money as the SEC and B1G counterparts." Pate even mentions the possibility tiered distribution in the clip above.
Overall it still remains a terrific deal for espn even without FSU and Clemson. All the lower tier acc teams need only look at Oregon State and Washington State to realize that getting 20 million a year is a lot better than getting 500k per year if they are homeless. The top 4 teams in the acc could see huge payouts and still have a couple guaranteed playoff spots.
Does it make the acc a 2nd tier conference? Yes, but getting 2 guaranteed playoff spots for a weak conference isn't too shabby. Does it suck for us to be stuck in the acc? A little bit, but at the end of the day if we are making as much as Alabama per year with a schedule that's far less difficult and have playoff spot guarantees, it's not the end of the world. The Big East generally sucked, but that didn't hurt us much. Are there other options for how this ends? Of course, but pretty much every other option has everyone suing everyone (small market acc teams will sue big market acc teams and the ACC itself, espn suing everyone, big schools suing small schools and espn and the ACC) and the cases will probably last until the end of the GOR.
