Clemson, Florida State, and the ACC all separately voted Tuesday to authorize a proposed settlement that would end four lawsuits that threatened to break the conference apart.
“Today’s resolution begins the next chapter of this storied league and further solidifies the ACC as a premier conference,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips in a joint statement Tuesday. “The settlements, coupled with the ACC’s continued partnership with ESPN, allow us to focus on our collective future—including Clemson and Florida State—united in an 18-member conference demonstrating the best in intercollegiate athletics.”
The settlement has two main components. It allows for a new revenue-incentive structure based on television money, and reduces the exit fees for leaving the conference. The new rules would apply to every school in the conference, with no separate carve-outs for FSU and Clemson, FOS reported Monday.
In December 2023, FSU sued the ACC in an attempt to invalidate the conference’s grant of rights contract, a companion document to the media-rights deal with ESPN that requires schools to stay in the conference until 2036, or the lifetime of the deal—or pay a heavy price. Clemson followed suit, specifically asking for clarity on what it would take to leave the conference. The ACC countersued both schools.
The settlement will solidify the conference’s existence, but it will also give schools a less cumbersome price to pay if they choose to leave the league in the 2030s, when several other conference media-rights deals expire and another round of realignment could be on the horizon.
The settlement will amend those exit fees: In 2026, exit fees will cost $165 million, and will decrease by $18 million every year until 2030–2031, according to numbers presented during Clemson’s board meeting. At that point, the exit fees will level off at $75 million per school until 2036.
It’s a major decrease from the current exit fees, which would increase from about $165 million each year between now and 2036. The conference also previously required that the ACC maintain a school’s media rights until 2036, which is no longer the case.
In addition to exit fees, the ACC will now award extra media-rights revenue to schools that have high television-viewership numbers. Combined with the ACC’s new success initiatives, and the ability for schools to get direct payments for advancement through the College Football Playoff, Clemson administrators estimated $120 million in potential earnings over the next six years.
FSU has now satisfied its two main goals. It has a path to the College Football Playoff (which the 12-team format provides) and the opportunity to earn extra revenue. And Clemson got its answer for how much it would cost to leave the conference. The ACC, meanwhile, lives to fight another day.
