- Attorneys general from Florida and 11 other states support Florida State University in its legal battle over sports media rights with the Atlantic Coast Conference.
- The AGs, all Republicans, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting FSU with the North Carolina Supreme Court.
- The brief argues that Florida State did not "unequivocally express" its consent to be sued in a courtroom outside Florida.
- The ACC is battling Florida State and Clemson in separate lawsuits moving through courtrooms in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
Attorneys general in Florida and 11 other states support Florida State University in its legal battle with the Atlantic Coast Conference over sports media rights. An earlier court filing labeled the case a $700 million dispute.
The North Carolina Supreme Court issued an order Wednesday accepting a friend-of-the-court brief in the case from AGs in Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. Each attorney general is a Republican.
The ACC is fighting both Florida State and Clemson in court over media rights. The conference has asked the state Supreme Court to link the schedules for separate suits against the two schools. Separate lawsuits are moving through courtrooms in South Carolina and Florida.
The 12 state AGs supporting Florida State echo its argument against the case moving forward in North Carolina’s courts.
“FSU and other member institutions assigned to the ACC certain media rights in a ‘grant of rights’ that the ACC is now trying to use to prevent FSU from leaving the ACC,” the 12 state AGs wrote. “The ACC has sued the FSU Board in North Carolina, seeking a declaratory judgment that the grant of rights transferred ownership of all of FSU’s sports media rights through 2036 regardless of whether FSU is a member of the association; an injunction preventing FSU from ever challenging the grant of rights, participating in ACC governance, or disclosing confidential information; and over $5 million in damages for FSU’s actions in attempting to assert its rights under the grant of rights and the ACC’s constitution and bylaws.”
The states “have an interest in preserving the rights secured to them and their constituent institutions by the U.S. Constitution, including the immunity of their public universities from suit in other states’ courts without the amici states’ clear and unequivocal consent,” according to the brief.
The US Supreme Court has “insisted” that a state entity like Florida State’s Board of Trustees can be sued in another state’s court only if consent to be sued has been “unequivocally expressed,” the AGs argued.
“The question in this case is whether the FSU Board ‘unequivocally expressed’ its consent to be sued in North Carolina’s courts, simply because North Carolina (not Florida) enacted a statute … providing that ‘[a] nonprofit association may assert a claim against a member or a person referred to as a “member” by the nonprofit association,’” according to the brief.
Florida State seeks to have the North Carolina lawsuit dismissed. The school wants to see the legal dispute resolved in the Sunshine State.
Meanwhile, Clemson wants its battle with the ACC to proceed in a South Carolina courtroom.
“Clemson University took its claims regarding its media rights contract with the Atlantic Coast Conference to its home forum, state court in Pickens County, South Carolina,” the university’s lawyers wrote in a brief filed Nov. 14 with North Carolina’s highest court. “Despite being able to fully defend the case there and even bring counterclaims, the ACC responded by suing Clemson in North Carolina state court — arguing that Clemson waived its status as a sovereign South Carolina entity by simply being a member of the ACC, an unincorporated nonprofit association based in North Carolina.”
“But the South Carolina General Assembly has not said that Clemson can be sued in North Carolina or anywhere else outside South Carolina, and Clemson has not, by its litigation conduct, expressly waived its sovereign immunity,” the Clemson court filing continued.
Relying on a North Carolina Supreme Court precedent from 2022, “the Business Court opined that it does not matter what the law is in South Carolina, and that Clemson’s actions — not in litigation, but by simply remaining a member of the ACC — waived its immunity from suit here. The Business Court’s decision rejecting Clemson’s sovereign immunity defense is fundamentally inconsistent with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt [a 2019 case], as well as longstanding precedent in this State.”
Clemson asks the North Carolina Supreme Court to overrule its 2022 ruling in Farmer v. Troy University or distinguish that precedent from the current dispute, “conforming North Carolina law to federal constitutional requirements.”
The ACC has asked North Carolina’s highest court to link the schedules for hearing its lawsuits against both member schools. Paperwork filed in September suggested a hearing could take place after mid-January 2025.
Both lawsuits address the multimillion-dollar price tag associated with leaving the athletic conference. One court filing labeled the FSU case a “$700 million” dispute. The legal battle with FSU started in December 2023. The lawsuit against Clemson began in March.
Lower courts rejected both universities’ requests to have the ACC’s lawsuits thrown out of North Carolina courts. Appeals in both suits sit now with the North Carolina Supreme Court.
North Carolina Business Court Judge Louis Bledsoe issued a 53-page order in July granting part of Clemson’s request to dismiss the ACC’s legal claims. But Bledsoe refused to dismiss the lawsuit in its entirety. He also rejected Clemson’s motion to stay the proceedings in the North Carolina case.
Bledsoe also issued an earlier ruling rejecting Florida State’s request to throw out the ACC’s suit in North Carolina.
“The only court that has jurisdiction over FSU, Clemson, and the ACC — and thus the only court that can assure a consistent, uniform interpretation of the Grant of Rights Agreements and the ACC’s Constitution and Bylaws, the determinations at the core of the Pending Actions — is a North Carolina court,” Bledsoe wrote.
“The Florida court in the Florida Action cannot bind Clemson in South Carolina. The South Carolina court in the South Carolina Action cannot bind FSU in Florida. Each of these courts and this Court could reach conflicting conclusions about the same terms of the same North Carolina contracts upon which the Pending Actions rest — and in so doing create procedural chaos and tremendous confusion at a time when the ACC, FSU, and Clemson need binding clarity concerning their rights under the ACC’s most important contracts with its Members,” the judge continued.
“Only a North Carolina court, most likely in a single consolidated action in North Carolina, can render consistent, uniform determinations binding the ACC, FSU, and Clemson concerning the documents that are at issue in all four Pending Actions,” Bledsoe added.