Jim Phillips, ACC face tough questions about ongoing litigation with Clemson, Florida State

When Jim Phillips opens ACC Football Kickoff on Monday in Charlotte, he will celebrate the league’s new members in Cal, SMU and Stanford.

But the ACC commissioner will be facing questions about the conference’s future.

Phillips has been under fire with ongoing lawsuits against Clemson and Florida State. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark took a public shot at the league earlier this month, making clear the conference is still open for business and declaring it is “one of the top three conferences in America.”

Phillips will be pressed with questions about the future direction of the conference, what Florida State and Clemson’s status is with the league and where the league stacks up with the rest of the Power Four.

“He kind of inherited it from [former ACC commissioner] John Swofford,” a senior TV source told On3. “He didn’t make that deal. If you really look through the contents of what Clemson and Florida State have filed, a lot of it is aimed at the preceding administration. Now, Phillips, he’s got a tough hand to play here.

“… You never want to be in litigation with your own schools. And yeah, the schools have signaled that they want out. I don’t know what he could possibly do to change that picture. He’s not going to go to ESPN for more money now.”

At the root of the issue is the ACC’s Grant of Rights. The schools believe they should be allowed to leave the ACC without penalty, despite agreeing to the Grant of Rights in 2013. A Grant of Rights agreement gives conferences the right to broadcast all member schools’ home games for the duration of the media rights deal.

In the ACC’s case, the GOR binds the league, schools and broadcast partners until the rights deal with ESPN expires in 2036. The ACC’s current TV contract with ESPN reportedly contains a unilateral option for the TV network in 2027 that must be exercised by February 2025 to extend the deal to 2036. Currently, ACC schools are pulling $39.4 million annually from TV revenue.

Along with the growing revenue gap in the Power 4, conferences are dealing with the new College Football Playoff agreement. The six-year, $7.8 billion College Football contract signed this spring gives 29% annually to the Big Ten and SEC, more than $21 million per school. The ACC will receive 17%, roughly $13 million per institution.

There are four ongoing lawsuits: the ACC vs. Clemson; the ACC vs. Florida State; Clemson vs. the ACC; and Florida State vs. the ACC. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody released a statement last week announcing she secured an agreement from the ACC’s attorneys to provide media rights contracts at the center of the legal battle. The ACC houses its Grant of Rights at the league office in Charlotte, where schools must go to read the document.

The agreement calls for the ACC’s 2010 multimedia rights agreement, a 2012 amendment and extension, a second amendment from 2014, a 2016 restated and amended deal, the ACC Network contract from 2016 and an August 2021 letter amendment to the current (2016) deal to be accessible.

Under the agreement, the ACC agreed to produce all documents no later than Aug. 1. Many of these lawsuits have been centered around landing access to the ACC’s contracts with ESPN. Florida State and Clemson argued the league’s contracts are invalid.

A source close to the ACC’s lawyers told On3 a settlement is not on the table and there is not a clear end in sight. The source also confirmed for On3 that the ACC is not expecting Florida State and Clemson to notify the league they intend to leave by the Aug. 15 deadline to depart after the upcoming year, as first reported by ESPN.

“All 17 ACC football programs will be playing this year,” a source said.

Florida State’s attorneys previously estimated it could cost upwards of $500 million to buy out its rights back and leave the ACC.

“You have all these private equity companies circling college sports,” the senior TV source told On3. “I think that is going to be a factor in the Big 12, maybe some of the other smaller conferences. I don’t know at the moment how the Big Ten and SEC are going to react to it, but I do see the potential of further destabilization.”