Florida State to sue ACC over grant of rights, withdrawal fee - ESPN

The Florida State board of trustees voted unanimously Friday to file suit against the ACC to challenge the legality of both the league's grant of rights and $130 million withdrawal fee, a necessary first step to plot its future and potential exit from the conference.

«I believe this board has been left no choice but to challenge the legitimacy of the ACC grant of rights and its severe withdrawal penalties,» board chairman Peter Collins said. «None of us like being in this position. However, I believe that we have exhausted all possible remedies within the conference and we must do what we believe is best for Florida State not only in the short term, but in the long term.»

Florida State is now in unprecedented territory. No school has ever challenged a grant of rights in court.

ACC officials have previously used the word «ironclad» to describe the document, and that has been the operating assumption from leagues across the country — believing the language in the document is so rigid it would prevent schools from leaving. But because no school has ever challenged the document in court, nobody actually knows whether it is, indeed, as ironclad as described.

At issue is what Florida State has described over the past year as not only growing revenue gaps with the SEC and Big Ten, expected to be $30 million annually per school, but disagreements over the way media rights money should be distributed within the ACC. Though the ACC recently adopted success initiatives to reward teams for performance in football and men's and women's basketball, Florida State has pushed for television money to be distributed unevenly based on media value to the conference. The ACC has refused.

«This is not where I would prefer to have ended up,»