Looks like it is just a matter of time until we have some ACC members in the SEC

Kinda think its a foregone conclusion that Clemson and FSU will one day be members

Alternate translation: Daddy ESPN told me they won’t give us more money to add schools ESPN already has under contract.

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Translation: Its too expensive for you to come to the SEC it appears as we certainly aren't covering that big of an exit fee. FSU and Clemson are stuck along with the rest of the ACC.

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100%. But Sankey could have easily said "we're not interested in further expansion", and he did basically the exact opposite. Makes me think at the latest, we have FSU and Clemson by 2036 when the ACC GoR expires, and probably sooner.

If ESPN doesn't give the ACC a massive payout increase, it would still make more sense at some point prior to 2036 to pay an exit fee and come to the SEC. ACC schools are getting about $13 million from the ESPN deal. The SEC will be making north of $60 million per school just from ESPN here in a few years. It would cost about $52 million to bail on the ACC, these schools would capture that difference in just a few seasons in the SEC, at most.

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ESPN doesn’t want us to add ACC teams. They already have those teams. Why would they want to pay way more for them?

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Because this contract is not sustainable. ACC teams will leave for greener pastures- and if not SEC then other places. You just can’t pay that much under the going rate.

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. You just can’t pay that much under the going rate.

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Going rate? ACC teams signed a contract specifically designed to deter teams from looking elsewhere. Now y’all want to look elsewhere and don't want to live up to your side.

I hope they hold each school to the $100M. Maybe in 2036 the ACC will remain relevant.

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Maybe in 2036 the ACC will remain relevant.

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This is like me wishing the Big 8 would reform and be financially viable and competitive. Ain't happening.

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SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey on expansion to the Network: Some schools have grant-of-rights "and we're not going to get in the middle of those."

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More like ACC is ESPN and SEC is ESPN, unless some jump to the B1G / FOX we are leaving the ACC alone

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ESPN and FOX don't give a shite about who they destroy on their path for more money.

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They are the conduits, not the ignition point. If the B1G did not want Notre Dame in the 90's we never expand, nordo the other conferences. Same thing happened again in 2009 with the Blair Report. That report was"for your eyes-only" for B1G member schools astray were the funding source for said report.

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There isn't an "exit fee" that will get you out of the grant of rights. That was the whole point behind them, because liquidated damage clauses were unenforceable against some state schools with sovereign immunity. An assignment of intellectual property rights is enforceable in equity and thus, not really subject to the sovereign immunity problem.

So, if you think there is some sum of money that an ACC school could pay to get out of the GOR as a matter of right, you are incorrect. The only way out would be to negotiate a deal with the conference, or to coordinate a max exodus by getting a sufficient majority to vote for dissolution of the conference.

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That is how a grant of rights functions. The ACC desperately entered into the current GoR in the wake of Maryland exiting the conference for a cool $31 million under its prior exit penalty structure. It has supposedly since amended that GoR, and I am not privy to a copy of it.

That does not mean that the parties would be unable to negotiate a deal - colloquially (even if technically incorrect), an exit fee, if certain members notify the ACC of their intent to leave the conference upon expiration of the GoR. I believe under those conditions, the exiting schools would owe the conference nothing once the grant of rights expires. Previously, as we saw with Maryland - when there was an exit fee in place - that $50 million figure was challenged in court and eventually settled for substantially less. As you noted, there were challenges to those exit fees - amongst those sovereign immunity.

However, if FSU, Clemson (and likely two others) notify the ACC of their intent to leave for the SEC in 2036, I am certain that the ACC would prefer to get some amount of money in the form of a negotiated deal, above and beyond what it would make by simply holding them in the conference until 2036.

Based on the revenue growth projections that we are seeing for the SEC and stagnation for the ACC, it is plainly reasonable to me that new ACC additions to the SEC could pay a negotiated sum to the ACC, above and beyond what those schools currently add to the ACC's total revenue, and still make more money in the SEC while paying such amounts to the ACC.

This does not even begin to address potential legal challenges to the grant of rights, that at the very least would be costly to the ACC to defend (or to enforce, for that matter). Not a great option, but one that would be painful for all involved.

And before you use OU and Texas as a comparator: that GoR expires in just a couple years, so for OU (which is a financial mess and has no money to offer anyone), it makes more sense to just wait it out. I don't think FSU and Clemson are going to be willing to do the same for another 14 years while the SEC and B1G schools double and then triple their annual revenue.

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want a VA school and a NC school…that’s all we’re missing from the SE

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VA Tech, NC State.

Then ride and leave it alone.