ESPN Implies Florida State Committed A Felony While Backing ACC In Ongoing Lawsuit

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Florida State and the ACC are currently engaged in a lawsuit that could have major implications for the future of the conference, and ESPN is clearly not siding with the Seminoles based on a brief it filed in the ongoing case.

The college football landscape is on the verge of being permanently altered as the country’s biggest (and most profitable) schools gear up to form the “superconferences” that are expected to create a new hierarchy, and it’s easy to understand why Florida State is hoping to join that upper echelon.

However, the university has found itself handcuffed by its contract with the ACC, as the school is theoretically facing a penalty that will set it back close to $575 million if it wants to escape from the Grant of Rights that doesn’t expire until 2036.

The Seminoles were already angling to leave the ACC before they were excluded from the College Football Playoff last season, and the fact that the weakness of the conference is believed to have played a major role in that snub served as the tipping point that led to FSU filing a lawsuit against the conference in an attempt to sever ties.

A Florida State alum was assigned to the case the school brought forward in the state it calls home, but there are actually two concurrent lawsuits thanks to the ACC, which filed a motion of its own in North Carolina while arguing it should be heard in the state where the conference is headquartered.

On Thursday, ESPN inserted itself into that second dispute by filing a motion that argues the details of its contract with the ACC should remain sealed, saying the public release of “textbook trade secrets” would be “destabilizing and harmful” to the network.

Lawyers for The Worldwide Leader noted FSU has already released some details of the contract in question, and while they didn’t outright accuse the school of committing a felony by doing so, they strongly implied that may be the case.

With that said, that argument doesn’t seem to stand up to a ton of scrutiny when you consider the university is a public institution that’s subjected to the “Sunshine Law” that requires any organization that receives taxpayer money in the state of Florida to be transparent about the vast majority of its inner workings; if Florida State hadn’t released the details of the contract while discussing them at a hearing, it would have been in violation.

We’re likely still months away from any concrete ruling in this particular matter, and while it’s already gotten fairly messy, it seems like it’s only going to get worse as the case continues to unfold.