ESPN deal with ACC to be revealed

One of the stranger aspects around the Florida State Seminoles’ attempt to leave the Atlantic Coast Conference is the state involvement that’s led to. There are many lawsuits between the ACC and schools (including, but not limited, to Florida State; Clemson is also involved in litigation) over the grant of rights that gives the conference schools’ broadcast rights through 2036, which has led to the ACC’s deal with Disney and ESPN for that timeframe, Around those, Florida attorney general Ashley Moody filed a public records lawsuit against the ACC in April demanding that the conference’s TV deal be made public.

Lawyers from both the ACC and ESPN initially opposed that push from Moody and her office, arguing that the deal here included “trade secrets.” And, indeed, it is quite unprecedented for a major conference’s TV deal to be fully public. But, following a deal here, that’s now going to happen (albeit with an as-yet-unknown amount of redactions). Here’s more on that from a release Moody’s office sent out Wednesday:

Floridians will finally get to see what the Atlantic Coast Conference is hiding in its effort to keep Florida State University from leaving the conference. Attorney General Ashley Moody just secured an agreement from the ACC’s attorneys to provide secretive media rights contracts at the center of the legal battle. The ACC capitulation follows legal action from Attorney General Moody demanding the conference make the contracts public in accordance with Florida’s Public Records Act. The contracts are at the heart of legal wrangling between FSU and the ACC over the school’s efforts to leave the conference and any fines or penalties associated with the departure.

Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “Our office’s legal action has resulted in an agreement from the ACC to produce secret media contracts that are at the heart of the legal wrangling between FSU and the ACC. The conference refused to provide media contracts that detail the impact to FSU if it departs the conference, but now they are rightfully handing over these public records. We will continue to fight for transparency.”

Attorney General Moody recently took legal action against the ACC for wrongfully withholding public records from review. Under secret media rights contracts located somewhere in its North Carolina headquarters, the ACC made claims that could cost FSU more than half a billion dollars, and previously refused to provide the documents for review—requiring representatives from the public university to travel hundreds of miles to physically access the documents with a chaperone, wasting FSU’s time and costing thousands of dollars of public monies in unnecessary travel expenses.

The release indicates that the ACC will produce the 2010 ACC Multi-Media Agreement, the 2012 Amendment and Extension Agreement, the 2014 Second Amendment to Multi-Media Agreement, the 2016 Amended and Restated ACC-ESPN Multi-Media Agreement, the 2016 ACC-ESPN Network Agreement, and the 2021 Letter Amendment to Amended and Restated Multi-Media Agreement by August 1, and will make those documents available as per the Florida Public Records Act. But, as Chris Vannini notes at The Athletic, there still likely will be redactions here. Perhaps even more interesting, though, was a Florida AG spokesperson’s response to his question on if they’ll follow this up by seeking other conferences’ TV deals:

It’s unclear how much sensitive information will be redacted from a public release of the ACC contracts. It’s also theoretically possible this could open the door for the TV contracts of other conferences that include public Florida universities, like the SEC and Big 12, to be made public. When asked whether it would take the same step with other conferences, the attorney general’s office told The Athletic, “Our case pertains to the ACC.”

So nothing is necessarily imminent there. But the deal here certainly does seem to suggest there could be pushes to make other conferences’ TV deals fully public (the top-line dollars of each have been well-reported, but the specific terms are not fully out there). And Moody’s office’s actions here certainly show that at least some state legal departments are ready to side with schools in their state against conferences.

We’ll see what comes from this specific document release, and from all the further legal wrangling around the ACC . But this deal could be a significant moment in terms of public knowledge of NCAA TV deals. Of course, it depends how much of this winds up being redacted, but the “Floridians will finally get to see what the ACC is hiding” language here does make it seem like a lot will be revealed. And that could lead to more on this front down the road.

[ My Florida Legal , The Athletic ]

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