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There’s been plenty of attention paid to Florida State’s ongoing legal battle with the ACC as it angles for an exit from the conference, but Clemson has managed to make some headlines of its own by escalating the lawsuit it’s also filed.
The ACC has spent the past couple of years nervously glancing over its shoulder as conference realignment has continued to alter the landscape of college football. The conference may be a member of the Power 5, but it’s impossible to argue it boasts the same caliber of teams that fall under the SEC and Big Ten umbrellas—a reality its most popular (and bankable) schools have also become increasingly aware of.
There were plenty of rumors Florida State was exploring its options before it was excluded from the most recent College Football Playoff, and that perceived snub undoubtedly played a role in its decision to file a lawsuit against the ACC in an attempt to escape from the Grant of Rights that dictates the television deals that don’t expire until 2036.
In March, Clemson (which is still one of the ACC’s biggest programs despite its recent struggles to regain its status as a perennial national championship contender) decided to get in on the action by suing the conference in a South Carolina court in the hopes of getting a judge to rule the Grant of Rights in unenforceable.
There hadn’t been any major developments in the case since the lawsuit was filed, but that changed in a big way courtesy of an amended complaint that surfaced Thursday.
According to The Tampa Bay Times, the filing shows the university is now seeking “punitive damages to Clemson for the ACC’s willful and malicious conduct,” which stems from the conference’s assertion that it would still be entitled to television revenue generated by games the Tigers play in even if they moved to another conference.
If that was the case, other conferences would obviously not have much incentive to welcome Clemson into the fold, and it’s subsequently seeking an unspecified amount in damages while claiming the ACC’s argument on that front served to “deter its exit from the Conference by, among other means, seeking to diminish the value of Clemson’s intangible property.”
We likely have a long way to go before this lawsuit (as well as FSU’s is settled), but it seems very likely things are only going to get messier as it continues to unfold.