I guess you all have seen those rumors going around of Clemson and Florida State reaching out to the Southeastern Conference to inquire about joining. Those stupid-ass rumors are just that — stupid.
Those who started those rumors have little to know understanding on how Grant of Rights, as they pertain to collegiate athletics, work. So allow your boy to go into a quick tutorial on just how they work and why they were put in place in the first place.
Imagine University A was locked into an agreement that allows its conference to secure its ability to make whatever million of dollars of television revenue per season for the ‘X’ amount of years. Now if said university wanted to leave its conference for greener pastures, said conference would withhold whatever amount of television revenue for the remaining years of the current deal, making it cost-prohibitive for the university to leave.
If anything, it protects the conference from leaving its biggest brands which drives up the television value of the conference.
Make sense? If not, let’s apply some real-life logic to this.
Clemson and Florida State are locked into a (horrible) TV deal with the Atlantic Coast Conference until 2036. It pays both — and its fellow members — roughly $32 million per year. Now word on the street is Clemson and Florida State have been looking to get the hell out of the ACC en route to the SEC.
This is where the ACC’s grant of rights come in.
If indeed Clemson and Florida State were to leave the ACC, not only would they have to forfeit the amount of revenue they would earn via the ACC’s television contract, they would have to PAY BACK THE DIFFERENCE to the ACC. That means both would owe the ACC $480 million — EACH. And by the way, since Clemson’s and Florida State’s rights would still belong to the ACC until 2036, both would not earn a dime during the duration of the grant of rights.
Think the SEC wanna help foot the bill for almost a cool billion for both? I for damn sure know that the schools themselves couldn’t afford that bill.
In other words, Clemson and Florida State are not going anywhere anytime soon. PERIOD…
Categories: college football, college sports
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