What's next in conference realignment for ACC and Pac-12? Follow the grant of rights

Only in times of chaos in college sports does the wonky jargon grant of rights intersect with mainstream conversation. Perhaps no factor looms larger for the future of the entire enterprise of college athletics than the consequences that come with signing — or the potential need to sign — a grant of rights.

A grant of rights is a legal term that comes up in the college landscape almost exclusively during times of conference realignment. The definition of the term itself is a fitting duality — both simple and complicated — considering how differently the grants are being viewed amid the latest starburst of realignment in 2022.

By extending their grant of rights in 2016, ACC schools did what the legal phrase says: They granted the rights to all their home games to the ACC until the league's television contract with ESPN expires in 2036. After granting them, schools are finding complications in the legal quagmire of the exploration of getting them back.

There has already been an extreme amount of analysis by multiple schools' general counsels examining the legal strength of the document, though one source familiar with one of those studies said there «doesn't appear to be much wiggle room» for schools eager to depart.

In the ACC, the grant of rights looms largest because of the 14 seasons that remain on the contract. The per-team estimated payouts project to hundreds of millions less over that span than teams in the Big Ten and SEC. The ACC should be about $40 million per team in upcoming years. The Big Ten and SEC should be north of $70 million in the early years of their upcoming deals, as the Big Ten is difficult to predict until it gets signed in the coming weeks. How big that gap grows — and there's always variance