If the Florida State Seminoles wanted to actually take the bold step of leaving the ACC and play elsewhere in 2024, the university has to make that decision this week.
It has been a wild last couple of weeks in the world of college sports. The powerful conferences pulling schools from smaller conferences have been a growing trend over the last decade. However, for the first time during this recent run of expansion, the sports world saw a major conference fall apart as they were unable to hold on to their members.
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The Pac-12 has been the talk of the college football and sports world after the conference fell to just four schools last week following the departures of Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Washington, and Oregon to the Big-12 and Big-10. It was a shocking development that overshadowed a big story developing in the ACC, and that is about the possibility that Florida State could leave the conference for greener — think money — pastures.
The university is not happy about the ACC’s current revenue distribution and with the biggest conferences getting their members massive paydays via media rights deals, there is certainly an appeal for a strong brand like Florida State to seek out a better financial arrangement with other conferences — for example the SEC.
Florida State locked into ACC media rights deal until 2036
“I believe that FSU will have to, at some point, consider very seriously leaving the ACC, unless there was a radical change to the revenue distribution,” Florida State President Rick McCullough said a couple of weeks ago.
If the university really wanted to take the shocking step of leaving the conference they have been a part of since 1991, The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reported on Monday that, “Any ACC school would need to give notice to the conference that it was departing by Aug. 15 in order to compete elsewhere the following academic year.”
So, are the unhappy Seminoles expected to inform the conference about their exit strategy next year? It doesn’t look like it. “The most likely outcome is that Tuesday arrives and the Seminoles do nothing,” sources told the outlet. The belieft of some around the school believe they may ponder the situation for another year and see if their are changes to their current distributions that are more satisfying.
There are major drawbacks to leaving the ACC for Florida State, which includes a $120 million exit fee an a likely legal battle since the school is locked into the current media rights deal until 2036.