Battle lines drawn: Florida State University’s continuing withdrawal lawsuit against Atlantic Coast Conference

On December 22, 2023, Florida State University (FSU) issued a lawsuit^[1] against the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), challenging the conference's ‘grant of rights’ agreement and related withdrawal penalties. The lawsuit - filed in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit in Leon County, Florida - sought to declare these agreements unenforceable and allow FSU to issue a formal notice of withdrawal from the ACC. This legal action came in response to what FSU described as years of mismanagement by the ACC, leaving member schools trapped in an unfavorable multi-media rights agreement and facing exorbitant penalties for attempting to join other conferences.  The ACC, for their part, also filed a parallel complaint in North Carolina, seeking injunctive relief to keep FSU in the conference.

This article examines the lawsuits and assesses their potential implications for both FSU and the ACC, as well as the broader landscape of collegiate athletics. It delves into the core issues of the dispute, including the financial disparities between the ACC and other major conferences, the details of the contested grant of rights agreement, and the ACC's countersuit. It also explores the possible outcomes of the legal battle and its potential to set precedents that could reshape conference alignments and media rights management in college sports:

• Background and core issues
• FSU’s complaint
• The ACC’s parallel complaint
• Potential implications and future outlook