Florida State will hold a Board of Trustees meeting on Friday and a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press the future of the athletic department and its affiliation with the Atlantic Coast Conference will be discussed.
The board is expected to consider a possible exit strategy that could involve legal action against the ACC and contracts that bind the conference’s members for 12 more years, according to the person, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because the school had not yet published an agenda for the meeting.
Florida State leaders have made it known they are unhappy with the school’s current situation in the ACC, where revenue distribution lags way behind the payouts to schools in the Southeastern and Big Ten conferences. That gap is likely to grow substantially in the near future as new media rights deals kick in for the SEC and Big Ten while the ACC is locked into a deal with ESPN that still has more than a decade left.
“We are not satisfied with our current situation,” Florida State President Rick McCullough said during an August board meeting.
Earlier this month, Florida State won the ACC football title game but became the first Power Five conference champion to finish with an undefeated record and still be left out of the College Football Playoff.
The snub of the Seminoles (13-0) for a playoff spot that went to SEC champion Alabama reignited frustrations at Florida State with what many of their supporters view as conference that holds back their athletic program — and most notably the football team.
Any ACC school that wants to leave the conference would have to challenge the grant of rights to be able to get out before joining another league. The grant of rights, which runs through 2036, gives the ACC control over media rights for its member schools — including the broadcast of games in all sports.
In addition, any school that wants to leave the ACC would have to pay an exit fee of three times the league’s operating budget, or roughly $120 million.
The length of the ACC’s agreement and potential financial penalties have protected the conference from being poached by other leagues the way the Big 12 and Pac-12 have been in the most recent round of realignment.
But it has also caused consternation in the conference as its members see a future where SEC and Big Ten schools are receiving upwards of $75 million annually from their conferences and ACC schools are struggling to stay within $30 million of their competitors.
“It’d be tough to run any other kind of company like this,” FSU board chairman Peter Collins said in August.
Florida State is not the only ACC member concerned about the growing revenue gap, but it has been by far the most vocal.
The ACC has tried to address some of those concerns through a proposed new revenue distribution model that will reward schools for postseason success. The ACC also decided to expand, adding Stanford, California and SMU next year. All three schools agreed to join the conference at a reduced rate, with the extra money ESPN will pay for new members being directed into the bonus pool.
Florida State, along with Clemson and North Carolina, voted against expansion, but it was not enough to block the move approved by the other 12 members, including Notre Dame.
