Florida State University announced it is suing the Atlantic Coast Conference and hopes to leave the conference it has been a part of since 1992. This move could have a massive ripple effect across college sports. Ten years ago, Florida State and all of the other teams in the ACC signed a grant of rights, which gave the conference ownership of each individual institution’s media rights. This agreement still has 13 years remaining on it, but in the suit, FSU claims the ACC has engaged in “chronic fiduciary mismanagement and bad faith.” Without court intervention, FSU would owe the ACC $572 million to leave for a different conference.

Friday’s news comes less than three weeks after FSU was not chosen for the four-team College Football Playoff, despite an undefeated regular season and a victory in the ACC Football Championship game in Charlotte. Shortly after the FSU news became public, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and Jim Ryan, Chair of the Board of Directors, issued a statement that reads in part, “Florida State’s decision is in direct conflict with their long-standing obligations. Florida State willingly re-signed the current grant of rights in 2016, which is enforceable.”

Ed Hardin, a former columnist for the Greensboro News and Record, believes that if FSU is successful in court, it could mean the end of the ACC as we know it. He states, “This is probably the first shot across the bow. And the thing that you suspect is that Clemson and (North) Carolina are watching very closely to see where this goes. Virginia, too, for that matter.”

Dave Odom, a Wake Forest Hall of Fame basketball coach, is equally concerned about what would happen to the conference if FSU and others were to leave. He stated, “I don’t think our league is strong enough to hold it together. We’d have to go to outer-lying areas. We’ve already done that. I hope that we are able to sustain the league in a geographic area that we are all familiar with, that where the slogan, the lettering ACC really means something, because they do.”

In the suit, FSU claims the ACC has engaged in “chronic fiduciary mismanagement and bad faith.” Without court intervention, FSU would owe the ACC $572 million to leave for a different conference. This move could have a massive ripple effect across college sports.