ACC will fight Clemson lawsuit ‘as long as it takes,’ commissioner says

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips told a crowd of media members on Monday there were “limits” to what he could say about ongoing legal battles with Clemson and Florida State.

But he made one thing crystal clear: At this point, he and his conference aren’t interested in settling.

“We will fight for as long as it takes,” Phillips said in his first ACC Kickoff news conference since the Tigers and the Seminoles, two of the league’s top football brands, sued the league over the enforceability of its grant of rights in an initial step to leave the ACC for another conference.

In a fiery opening address from uptown Charlotte on the opening day of the ACC’s annual football media days , Phillips added that the FSU and Clemson lawsuits were “extremely damaging, disruptive and incredibly harmful to the league” and overshadowed the ACC’s student-athletes as well as the conference’s recent on-field success across numerous sports.

“We are confident in this league and that it will remain a premier conference in college athletics for the long-term future,” Phillips said, emphasizing that the ACC is “bigger than any one school ... or schools.”

FSU sued the ACC in December 2023 and Clemson followed course in March. Both schools are challenging the enforceability of the ACC’s grant of rights , which currently binds the revenue generated from ACC schools’ home athletic events to the conference through 2036, even if a school departs for another conference.

Complicating the schools’ various arguments surrounding the legality of the grant of rights is the fact Clemson and FSU both signed the original grant of rights in 2013 and a 2016 extension.

The ACC has heavily emphasized that point from the start of litigation, and Phillips on Monday framed the lawsuits as “ongoing disputes with two of our members about the contracts they each signed twice and whether they will honor those agreements.”

Clemson and FSU filed their lawsuits in an initial attempt to position themselves to leave for another conference such as the SEC or Big Ten in the future amid concerns over the growing revenue gap between ACC schools and other Power 4 schools based on conference payouts from more advantageous TV deals.

Some estimates have the annual deficit between ACC and SEC and Big Ten schools, in terms of annual payouts, at $30 to $40 million annually.

But, Phillips said, “the fact is that every member of this conference willingly signed the grant of rights and unanimously and, quite frankly, eagerly agreed to our current television contract.”

ACC will do ‘everything we can’

As of Monday, there are four active lawsuits in the league’s legal disputes with the two schools: Florida State vs. ACC in Tallahassee, Clemson vs. ACC in South Carolina, and ACC vs. Florida State and ACC vs. Clemson in Charlotte.

Specific to Clemson: A North Carolina judge denied the school’s motion to dismiss or stay (pause) the ACC’s March 20 counter-suit against Clemson in Charlotte earlier this month, and Clemson has appealed that decision to the NC Supreme Court .

And in South Carolina, a Pickens judge denied the ACC’s motion to dismiss or stay Clemson’s original March 19 lawsuit against the ACC, allowing it to continue as (mostly) as is . The ACC has not yet formally appealed that decision.

“There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t spend time on the legal cases,” Phillips said. “We have proven that you have to more forward even with these types of distractions and issues that are part of our daily lives.”

Phillips, who’s entering his fourth year as ACC commissioner after succeeding John Swofford , said he thinks “very highly” of Clemson president Jim Clements and athletic director Graham Neff, as well as FSU’s president and AD, and their schools’ lawsuits have not changed his working relationship with them “at all.”

“The moment that first lawsuit happened in December, I grabbed the staff and I told them that we are not going to treat any school any differently because student-athletes have nothing to do with this, coaches have nothing to do with this, a lot of administrators don’t,” Phillips said. “This is just a separate piece.”

The ACC’s ongoing legal battle with two of its members, Phillips said, “doesn’t have to be evil. It doesn’t have to be about hatred, or all the other things that I think we all see free-flowing in our society. It’s important, and we’ve taken our stance. We’ll stay on that stance, but we’ll do it in a very respectful way.”

Cordial interactions aside, Phillips emphasized multiple times the ACC is confident in its legal position in both disputes and intends to see each case through, as long as that make take (it’ll be months and more likely years, given the lengthy legal processes required at various levels).

“Forceful moments deserve forceful support and leadership ... I stand by everything I’ve said from the moment the first interview I did around the Orange Bowl on ACCN (after FSU’s lawsuit) to today,” Phillips said. “This is a really important time for the conference, and either you believe in what’s been signed or you don’t. We are going to do everything we can to protect and to fight the league.”