ACC wants FSU’s suit submitted in Florida postponed

• Dan Murphy, ESPN

  • Personnel WriterFeb 16, 2024, 02:26 PM ET Close Covers the Huge Ten
  • Signed up with ESPN.com in 2014
  • Graduate of the University of Notre Dame

The Atlantic Coast Conference asked a Florida judge on Friday to press pause on a claim Florida State submitted, which claims the conference is breaching its contract, till a similar case concludes in North Carolina.The ACC and Florida

State took legal action against each other in late December to fix a disagreement over what the university would need to pay if it decides to leave the conference. Legal representatives for the Seminoles estimate the school would have to pay$527 million to withdraw from the league and restore control over its media rights, severing a contract that isn’t arranged to expire till 2036. They argued that those costs are”draconian “and “unreasonable restraints of sell the State of Florida.”

The 2 sides are fighting to determine which state court should get to rule on their dispute. The ACC wants the case to play out in North Carolina, where its head office lie. Florida State desires the case to be heard on its home turf by a circuit court judge in Tallahassee.The ACC’s filing on Friday argues that its grant of rights contract is governed by North Carolina law and that their North Carolina-based claim need to take precedence since it was filed first– one day before Florida State submitted its claim to the Florida court.Editor’s Picks”[ T] he parties substantively engaged initially on the field in North Carolina. …

Which is as it must be,”the ACC’s legal representatives wrote in their motion Friday. “Florida State selected to sign up with the ACC, a North Carolina unincorporated not-for-profit association, and entered and specifically enacted favor of the agreements it now challenges, all of which are governed by North Carolina law.”If the judge does not give a stay in the Florida case, the ACC also sent a motion to dismiss the case for a variety of reasons. The conference states Florida State hasn’t specified what contract the ACC is apparently breaching. It likewise argued Florida State can’t ask a judge to make a ruling before the school takes some action to leave the conference.Florida State’s legal representatives requested a similar stay or termination from the North Carolina judge a week ago.

The North Carolina court is scheduled to host a hearing on the termination request on March 22. If neither judge grants a stay, both lawsuits could continue down parallel tracks. That situation could create

a race to judgment in which the first court to reach a judgment would effectively end the other case.The ACC’s long-lasting television agreement is considerably less rewarding than more current offers signed by competitors in the Big 10 and SEC conferences, which leaves much of its more prominent athletic departments with issues about competing on a nationwide level.Florida State, which has actually belonged to the ACC considering that 1991, has been exploring legal alternatives to leave the conference since at least this past summer season. The Seminoles were likewise among a group of ACC schools that checked out options to break away from the league previously in 2023. They decided to take legal action in December, shortly after the school’s unbeaten football group was left out of this season’s four-team College Football Playoff.