Would that only come into play for "for profit" entities? Does the lack of a competitive football team truly affect the university's ability to perform its primary role (supposedly) of providing a college education for its students?
It is a good point and one I see being used down the line by those schools who do not end up in one of the Big 2. The money gap is so great with plenty of public institutions involved, I just don't see where the government or some kind of litigation gets involved once the dust settles.
I think
@No_Fly_Zone covered some of this in his great response back on Page 6.
This isn't about "profit" vs. "not for profit" entities. It's really about whether there was an element of fraud or deception or dishonesty at the outset that now renders the contract so onerous that the courts and public policy cannot allow it to stand as is.
Can the ACC schools make a STUPID decision? Absolutely. I've been arguing this for years, that the TV deal (ACC) and the adidas deal (UM) were just too **** long and did not provide the chance for a more-frequent market reset to fair market value. Instead, the only way that the ACC could "renegotiate" our TV payout was to increase the size of the conference. And outside of Notre Dame, this would have involved poaching schools from other conferences, which comes with its own legal and ethical dilemmas.
Now, can the ACC then DECEIVE the member institutions, or can ESPN on its own DECEIVE the ACC and lock various parties into an onerous contract? Posssssibly. So if the ACC told member schools "hey, you can get out of the GOR by paying a 2-year exit penalty", and then they remove that clause from the final document, one could argue that this deception locked the schools into a decades-long deal that was never contemplated. Or if ESPN comes back and says "hey, you just accepted Notre Dame for football, but because Maryland left a while ago, we will not re-open discussions, because we snuck in a clause that says "the ACC as constituted at 2010", then you could have legal recourse.
However...as discussed...I don't feel like we have the factual scenario to argue along these lines, even if we know that the widening $$$ gap is KILLING US. But...sadly...that is OUR FAULT for agreeing to such a craptastic contract. And I'm not saying that I personally knew every detail of the deal 10 years ago. But our Presidents and ADs did. And they signed off anyhow.
So I think our only way out is to kill the whole ACC conference. And THAT should kill the GOR (though I'm not sure if there has been a prior case that proved that theory). And then once the GOR and conference are gone, we can go where we want at no cost.
On the other hand, will ESPN threaten lititgation to keep a VERY favorable broadcast deal in place, GOR or no GOR? Very possibly, which is why we might still end up working out a compromise with ESPN.
