The ACC Grant of Rights broken down via @aadelsonESPN

There are a lot of twitter lawyers out that think they know how the GOR works, but a thread from the highly respected @aadelsonESPN  breaks it down for us.

last year, one source said the ACC “looked at everybody.” Going coast to coast with Pac schools was not something the presidents wanted to do. The focus has been on ND (what else is new). Should that calculation on going West have been different now that the Big Ten got USC/UCLA?

— Andrea Adelson (@aadelsonESPN) July 8, 2022

Is anyone naive to think conversations are not happening outside ACC conference calls? Of course not. But the ACC believes it has what it needs to keep things together with its grant of rights. To underscore that point: Current withdrawal fee would stand at $120 million.

— Andrea Adelson (@aadelsonESPN) July 8, 2022

That part could be litigated. The grant of rights is where things get challenging. Any departing school would have to pay the withdrawal fee, plus forfeit its media rights and the ability to have home games and some nonconference games air on TV. In all sports. Through 2036.

— Andrea Adelson (@aadelsonESPN) July 8, 2022

That doesn’t mean it *won’t* go unchallenged. At some point, someone will do it. But it will move slowly through the courts, requiring time and money without having any real idea about whether the case is winnable. There is a reason nobody has gone to court yet.

— Andrea Adelson (@aadelsonESPN) July 8, 2022

That is why there are some schools that are rightfully nervous and worried about what all this looks like whenever we get to the end point of wherever this is headed. Nobody knows where that is or when we get there, but hopefully this explains the unique situation in the ACC.

— Andrea Adelson (@aadelsonESPN) July 8, 2022

As we’ve said on the blog several times, the ACC’s GOR will make it very difficult for any ACC program to leave in the relative short term. I consider a relative short term at least 5 years. That said and we’ve said this several times. ACC Commissioner Jim Philips has time as opposed to his B12 and Pac12 counterparts to come up with a revenue solution, but it’s not unlimited time.

As my blog partner @Hokiesmash_ASD wrote, he’s on the clock.

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