Damn. I know lawyers are good at bullshiting and making dumb things sound logical, but this is WAY better than I could have imagined. The below is the only part I figured they go after along with trying to understand the enforcement logistics of non compliance:
”They believe that the severity of the penalty to withdraw from the league should be considered “unreasonable restraints of trade” or unenforceable.”
But if there is any truth to the rest (and discovery here should be fun, if it’s ever publicly released) and the media rights really don’t go past 2027, that may be FSU’s exit timeline…along with Clemson, Miami, UNC, UVA and others which would fuck the ACC hard.
Who would sign a GOR past their TV contract when you literally have no idea what value you would be getting in return? If true, and the ACC lied to pull a fast one on them then that’s huge.
If it all starts breaking apart, and you’re Pitt or Louisville, why hang around and wait and see when you could just join the Big 12?
For those that may have some fringe possibilities for getting into the SEC/B1G (VT, GT, NCSU, Duke) I could see waiting but you don’t want to be the last semi-serious fb school left in a zombie of a conference with Wake, Syracuse, BC, Cal, Stanford, and SMU where you’re best adds are UConn and the American Athletic Conference schools not good enough to get invited to the Big 12 (Temple, Tulane, Memphis, USF, East Carolina, Rice).