Florida State’s attorneys issued a scathing amendment that repeatedly alleges former commissioner John Swofford for “diluting” the ACC’s media rights through various deals with ESPN as well as Raycom Sports.

The 59-page amendment was filed late on Monday in Leon County Circuit Court. Much of the amendment focuses on Tier II and Tier II games, which are often Olympics sports for Florida State and other league schools but can also include a chunk of football and men’s basketball games.

This represents about 20 percent of media rights payments, but the amendment says it’s a focal point in the ACC’s long-term relationship with regional syndication network Raycom. One of Swofford’s sons, Chad, worked as an executive at Raycom since 2007. Chad Swofford had previously worked at Boston College at the time BC was admitted to the ACC.

“The Raycom Sports Partnership has cost each ACC member several million dollars and continues to depress the value of their media rights,” FSU’s amendment states.

Among the assertions in the amendment by FSU’s lawyers are that the “ACC punishments are unenforceable penalties” that the ACC “materially breached its contracts with FSU” and also that the ACC breached its “fiduciary duties” to FSU.

“Florida State is a victim of chronic mismanagement and self-dealing by ACC leadership and finds itself unable to effectively evaluate alternatives while the Severe Withdrawal ACC Penalties and the ACC GofR hang over Florida State’s head,” the amendment states.

FSU’s amendment also asserts the Grant of Rights, which signed over each league school to the conference, does not run through 2036 but instead 2027 and that ESPN has a unilateral option to extend the deal in Feb. 2025.

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Some notes from the amendment:

Raycom cut 20 employees in 2008 when ESPN won the rights to all SEC content. This cut Raycom out of the deal. Over the next two years, 80 percent of Raycom’s annual revenue came from its business with the ACC. Keeping the ACC relationship was the only way a “small, regional syndicator” like Raycom “could stay relevant” in the marketplace.

Swofford let the strongest bidders, ESPN and Fox, know that he wanted to include Raycom, which went into the talks as a partner to both networks, rather than trying to bid against their deeper pockets. A news story at the time quoted Swofford: “It would be our preference if ESPN could construct something that would keep us in business with Raycom.”

A footnote states in part: “The ACC refuses to provide its members, much less the public, with a copy of the media rights agreements its media consultant negotiated, and to which its members are thus ‘committed.’ Rather, members are only allowed to inspect the document at the ACC’s headquarters after first obtaining permission from the ACC and while under the ACC’s watchful eye, making it almost impossible for the members to ascertain whether the terms of ‘their’ media rights agreement are competitive or at market.”

The amendment asserted by FSU’s lawyers is that the GOR expires in three years (2027), at the point of ESPN’s option, and not the potential end date (2036) if the network exercises the option. “It is a widely repeated misconception that the ACC’s multi-media rights agreement expires in 2036. In truth, the multi-media rights agreement expires in 2027 unless ESPN chooses to exercise its unilateral option through 2036, a decision ESPN has no duty to make until February 2025, thanks to other additional conference mismanagement detailed below.”

FSU’s amendment cites a number of stories by national media, including those by Sports Business Journal and Forbes, that compare the ACC’s media rights deals and cash payments to those of the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12. “As stated previously in the 2012 ACC-ESPN amendment, the cash payment begins at $12,269,021 in 2012-13 and escalates at 4.5 percent,” the amendment states. “… As Maryland demonstrated, the ACC’s media agreements were so deficient that it still made financial sense to pay tens of millions of dollars in penalties to escape them.”

A key point of the GOR was tied to the creation of the ACC Network. If FSU’s board of trustees and president didn’t agree to sign, as well as others around the league, ESPN would not launch a league channel (the ACCNetwork), the amendment asserts. Swofford issued an “ultimatum” to ACC members. “Unless each ACC member executed an extension of the GOR for a full nine years beyond the then-expiration date, from 2027 to 2036, ESPN would enter into no further media rights agreements with the ACC, meaning there would be no prestige network for the ACC launched by ESPN,” the amendment states.

While the ACC Network launch date was set for 2016, Swofford and ESPN executives agreed the changing TV landscape (cord-cutting by consumers) would push a launch to 2019.

The amendment references a 2013 story by Sports Business Journal that states “ESPN needs to control the conference’s syndicated rights to launch a channel. But those rights are tied up until 2027 through deals with Raycom and Fox Sports Net.” The amendment states Raycom owned the rights to 31 live football games and 60 live men’s basketball games, but Raycom then sublicensed 17 football games and 25 basketball games to Fox’s regional sports networks.

FSU’s amendment states that when the “ACC Network launched in 2019, the members combined to spend ‘a whopping $110 million to $120 million of their own money so they are prepared to produce live events and other programming.’ ” ESPN now pays each member institution a $1 million annual production fee, per the amendment.

Osceola publisher Jerry Kutz previously reviewed the lawsuits by FSU and the ACC

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