What’s a game? The 9-figure answer will shape FSU, Clemson, ACC lawsuits

The most important argument in the ongoing lawsuits between Florida State/Clemson and the ACC became slightly clearer this week thanks to a newly unredacted South Carolina court filing.

The heart of the dispute between the conference and two of its biggest brands is this question: Who owns the TV rights to an ACC home game after a school leaves the league?

If those rights belong to the ACC until its ESPN contracts end (as late as 2036), the Seminoles and Tigers risk losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in TV revenue if they exit the league. If FSU and Clemson keep those rights, it’s possible their departing cost would be only a withdrawal fee of about $140 million.

The answer to this dispute partially lies in the ACC-ESPN contracts — documents Clemson has had for weeks, FSU will soon receive and Florida’s Attorney General claims should be public. Because ESPN and the ACC contend those deals include trade secrets, references to them have been so heavily redacted in court filings that some arguments have been impossible to follow.

Until Thursday’s filing in Pickens County, South Carolina (where Clemson has sued the ACC).

Clemson and the ACC agreed to remove some redactions from the school’s complaint. It turns out that an entire round of conference realignment could turn on the contracts’ definition of “game.”

The ACC gave ESPN the rights to broadcast contests, “in which any Conference Institution is the home team, or which the Conference or any Conference Institution otherwise Controls the distribution rights.”

Which brings us to Clemson’s now-public argument: If the Tigers leave the ACC, they’re no longer a “Conference Institution.” They won’t be an ACC home team, and they won’t play in games where the league controls distribution rights (like a conference tournament).

Though Clemson gave its TV rights to the ACC through what’s called a grant of rights, the school contends that document only applies to rights necessary to fulfill the ACC’s ESPN agreements.

“The ESPN Agreements do not require the ACC to provide ESPN with the rights to games in which the home team is not a member of the ACC, so were Clemson not in the ACC, the Conference would not have the contractual obligations to provide ESPN with the rights to produce, distribute and sublicense Clemson’s home games,” a newly unredacted part of the suit said.

And if the conference doesn’t have the contractual obligations to give those rights to ESPN, they’d belong to Clemson. Millions of corresponding TV dollars would, too.

It’s unclear whether a judge will agree with that interpretation. Different courts could read it differently as suits play out in South Carolina, Leon County (where FSU sued the ACC) and North Carolina (where the ACC separately sued FSU and Clemson).

But the latest filing at least gives us a better sense of what, exactly, Clemson is arguing.

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