Breaking News Updates: FSU BOT meeting, unanimous vote to push forward with legal filing
- Thread starter CurtWeiler
- Start date
Re: that update: I don't believe that's quite what he said. As I watched the meeting, what Ashburn said is that a court, having found that the current exit penalty was inappropriate and/or unenforceable, would not then adjust the penalty amount, but would rather invalidate it, making the penalty zero. I don't recall that he expressed any view on what the exit penalty should be, but only that the current penalty is "draconian." I could be wrong.
Signing an unseen legal document is impossible. One can’t provide consent/approval without actually listing what is being agreed to. FSU did not agree to the ACC agreements in question.
Want to be sure our Osceola readers understands Ashburn is independent counsel for FSU and the managing partner of the local office of Greenberg-Trauwig. Carolyn Egan is FSU's legal counsel.
As I noted last night, because of Florida's very real Sunshine Laws, two or more trustees may not meet privately to discuss a matter. It must be done in public. However, prior to that public meeting, documents can be sent to each BOT member and a non-BOT member, such as legal counsel may meet with trustees one-on-one, as Collins noted Ashburn and Egan have done, to vet facts or questions with each trustee individually.
If you noticed, there were not a lot of questions asked in the board meeting as every question a board member may have had, was answered prior to the meeting in those one on one meetings. Do not take their lack of questions or passionate discussion to mean that this board did not ask very critical questions in those one-on-one meetings or have passionate discourd.
its not uncommon for there to be differences of opinion or approach that were vetted one-on-one during the process so that by the time the vote is taken, every thing had been hashed out, and there is unanimity.
Do I think two or more trustees had conversation by phone or at a tailgate party? I'm not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree nor am I the village idiot. It happens.
So the GOR expires in 2036 and with our stellar legal system we should get a final ruling (after all appeals have been exhausted of course) to vacate the penalty by 2035.
I’ve been crazy busy today getting crap done at work b4 the long vaca.
Could someone plz sum up in a few sentences what was said today by the BOT’s?
TIA
Could someone plz sum up in a few sentences what was said today by the BOT’s?
TIA
Can we sue Thrasher and Wilcox for getting us into this mess?? 🤓
Dang you can find a roach turd in 100 pounds of pepper.
On what basis? That they were given fraudulent representations of an ESPN ultimatum?
Damn we have the managing partner of Greenberg- Trauwig. FSU is not f***ing around. Guy is probably $2000 an hour.
Just a silly question, hence the emoji. I'll leave yours to all the lawyers on here.
This has moved from message board fodder to a very serious and immediate event. Just WOW.
Last edited:
But that was my implied question.
There are 2 items here…the GOR with the ACC and the media rights between the ACC and ESPN.
We must have seen the GOR to sign it.
If, as you say, there were aspects hidden from FSU then why wait 10 yrs to challenge it?
It seems more plausible that we simply hooked our wagons to the ACC and then the ACC negotiated the media rights with ESPN which suck. We are now mad that the media rights with ESPN suck and are powerless to do anything about it including even seeing the agreement but the cardinal sin was re-hooking our wagons to the ACC in the 1st place.
Worse
I’m married to a contracts lawyer. No way we are waiting around for the results of a lawsuit. This has settlement agreement written all over it.
I think Bob's posting do just that.
In my opinion, this is a necessary first step and the most urgent action item is a legal request to get copies of all the relevant executed documents --- GOR and Multi-Media Rights Agreements -- that the ACC has not made available to member institutions.
I don't see this being resolved overnight but every journey begins with the first step.
If it does nothing more than bring out the ESPN contract then I'm happy.
I smell bullcrap from letting these new teams in. Expanding with loser programs does nothing for the conference and I would allege it was nothing more than collusion between the ACC admin and other ACC programs to keep FSU, UNC, Clemson from leaving. And ruining their free loading ass paydays.
It's been time to see just WTF happened with these documents. I'm ready to party.
I smell bullcrap from letting these new teams in. Expanding with loser programs does nothing for the conference and I would allege it was nothing more than collusion between the ACC admin and other ACC programs to keep FSU, UNC, Clemson from leaving. And ruining their free loading ass paydays.
It's been time to see just WTF happened with these documents. I'm ready to party.
The courts will decide (assuming the case makes that far) plausibility. The timing seems to be due to the widening revenue gap that was acceptable at $6M but no longer acceptable at $30M.
If the ACC refused to release a written copy to members - or some members - and misrepresented it verbally, the ACC absolutely IS still at fault. FSU can be faulted for trusting the ACC representations, being assured by the ACC and believing that the ACC would be faithful to their fiduciary responsibility and to their moral, ethical, and relational responsibility.
How’s it taste? I hear it’s best fricasseed with humble pie for dessert.
Whether the ACC has a fiduciary responsibility to FSU (requiring the ACC to act on the best interests of FSU) did cross my mind. If it does rise to that level, I think the ACC clearly failed.
I note that it's in the ACC's best interest to delay this as much as possible. I doubt seriously they will release documents until discovery is ordered by the Court, and may well delay discovery as long as possible. And don't be surprised if there is a media campaign to blame-shift the conflict to FSU.
I have said to a good friend of mine. If these people were hired to manage your money they would have been fired a long time ago. There are so many ways to have enhanced the brand of the acc and these people have failed miserably.
The acc - georgia tech, fsu, Clemson have all won national titles. Miami won while in another conference but they also have banners. Basketball has had duke, unc, uva - sure there are many others and this league has sat by and watched as others have made millions if not billions. It is straight bs. When the SEC started expansion….I was on another fsu site banging the drum they should have gone after Texas and OU. I would have gone after usc and Ucla. Where you were located did not matter…you could see this happening. Nah instead we have Barron and other bozos signing our rights away for 30 years. Awful…..they all should be sued. Barron left and what do you have now. I would make his sorry ass to the lawsuit.
The media rights agreement is between the ACC and ESPN.
Does the ACC have responsibility to the members institutions other than negotiating on their behalf? Or did we sign over those rights when we signed the GOR?
The fact that we have no right to see the media rights agreement and and haven’t challenged any aspect of it for 10 yrs other than a handful of Warchant posting bi—ing leads me to conclude what I have.
I urge everyone to read the 38 page legal filing. I've only read 3 pages so far, and I can tell you we are well-represented. Seriously, you owe it to yourself to read it, if you want to understand where we are and what comes next.
Added note: I finished all 38 pages. You will be even more angry than you already are.
Added note: I finished all 38 pages. You will be even more angry than you already are.
Last edited:
so many keep saying fsu can’t get out it. No, they can. No one has seriously challenged it. Agreements are never iron clad and and can be broken. Fsu is going to prove that staying in the acc makes it very difficult to compete. Espn and the sec just showed they colluded and left fsu out of the playoffs. The damages financially are too much to overcome. There are zero positives to staying in the acc. The rest of the teams like Clemson and Miami will end up jumping into the lawsuit and the acc will die as a conference.
Yes, the ACC has a legal fiduciary responsibility to negotiate in good faith. When you sign a document giving a stockbroker trading authorization in your account, you are ESTABLISHING his fiduciary responsibility, not ELIMINATING it.
It’s clear the leaders at the time wanted us to be more like UNC, Duke, BC, UVA…academic institutions that have sports teams instead of Alabama, Texas, Georgia…which are academic institutions that see successful athletics as a tremendous way to build their university brand and fund all the great things they want to do.
The GOR was the shackles that those turds put upon FSU to ensure that, at least for 25 yrs, no one would be able to undo their vision of what FSU should be.
How do you quantify ‘not acting in good faith’?
I’m sure the ACC tried to get the most cash they could out of ESPN.
The fact is that the conference has zero leverage when half the schools in the conference trot out that product each week…no one is watching which means they can’t sell ad revenue other than those horrible low tier commercials. We’ve all seen them.
I have read the first 15 pages.
So far…we gave away the media rights to the ACC and we were fine with the results for a while but now we don’t like the results.
Note: FSU is suing the ACC for violation of
Have your wife 'the contracts lawyer' review the 38 page filing. See what she says.
What gets me is we dont have a copy of the contract. Have to go to their offices to view it. When do you not have a signed copy of a contract you are a part of?
So the ACC jumped in and hit their suit in first. Wants to litigate in North Carolina. First thing they have done fast in their existence.
Of course it does. ACC was just hoping they could stare us down.
