Florida State would consider leaving ACC due to revenue distribution - ESPN

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State President Richard McCullough told his board of trustees during a meeting Wednesday that the university would have to «very seriously» consider leaving the ACC unless there is a radical change to the conference's revenue distribution model.

McCullough addressed the board to give an update on where Florida State stands after a year spent exploring options about what the future holds in the wake of conference realignment and big money television contracts in the Big Ten and SEC. The moves are in line to put ACC schools $30 million behind per year from a TV revenue distribution standpoint.

The ACC recently changed its revenue distribution model to reward success on the field in football and basketball. But Florida State has also pushed for changing the model to reward programs that generate higher television revenue and marketability, areas where FSU believes it has an advantage.

«Our goal would be to continue to stay in the ACC, but staying in the ACC under the current situation is hard for us to figure out how we remain competitive unless there were a major change in the revenue distribution within the conference,» McCullough said. «That has not happened. Those discussions are ongoing at all times.

»FSU helps to drive value and will drive value for any partner, but we have spent a year trying to understand how we might fix the issue. There are no easy fixes to this challenge, but a group of us have spent literally a year. We've explored every possible option that you can imagine. The issue at hand is what can we do to allow ourselves to be competitive in football and get what I think is the revenue we deserve?

«This continues to be a very difficult issue. There's a lot going on in the