Clemson has long been satisfied to wait just outside the ring, watching Florida State publicly and loudly fight the same war it was prepared to fight. It doesn’t mean the schools had divergent goals, but it does suggest they used different strategies.
You couldn’t watch a Clemson board of trustees meeting on YouTube as you could at FSU, where Seminoles administrators both inside and outside of sports openly discussed the necessity to leave the ACC over a year ago. However, after much anticipation, the Tigers have now joined the Noles in suing the ACC on a parallel legal road. It raises the stakes for an already troubled league.
The primary grounds of Clemson’s legal case are that the ACC’s penalty charge (possibly $500 million or more) for leaving the conference is unenforceable, and that Clemson could quit the league while still controlling the broadcast rights to its games. The term “Grant of Rights” is derived from the fact that they signed a paper handing the ACC control over such rights until at least 2027. ESPN has the option of extending its television arrangement and rights grant through ’36, but must do so by February 25. It’s unclear whether the transfer of rights extends until 1936, regardless of what happens with the TV deal.
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