Syracuse Orange: Latest court motion by FSU could speed up a possible exit from ACC

As the Syracuse Orange and its peers across the Atlantic Coast Conference conduct their fall sports, legal battles between the conference and two of its members continue on away from the field of play.

Per a recent report from national writer Brandon Marcello of 247Sports and CBS Sports, Florida State has "filed a motion ... for a partial summary judgment in its lawsuit against the ACC that could expedite the school's potential departure from the conference, according to court documents reviewed by CBS Sports."

I've noted in a couple of recent columns that ACC members Florida State and Clemson have been involved in court cases with the league as it pertains to possibly departing the ACC, with some of the key issues centering around the conference's grant of rights deal with ESPN that expires in 2036 and significant exit fees.

For the current 2024-25 season, the ACC grew its membership to 18 schools through the additions of former Pac-12 Conference members California and Stanford, as well as SMU out of the American Athletic Conference.

ACC peers of the Syracuse Orange may try to bolt the conference.

With its latest court filing, Marcello wrote, "FSU is asking for a partial summary judgment related to breach of contract and its ACC exit fee, which is more than $140 million. If the judge in Leon County, Florida, rules in favor of FSU's request, the school could have more cache to ask the ACC for a reduced exit fee, said Mit Winter, an expert in college sports litigation based in Kansas City, Mo."

"Florida State filing this motion for summary judgment is their attempt at a kill shot for all the litigation that's going on," Winter told Marcello, who noted in his story that the ACC and FSU convened for mediation last month but didn't come away with a resolution to their ongoing legal dispute.

As Marcello and others have reported, if Florida State looked to exit the ACC without a settlement or resolution to their legal issues, it could cost the Seminoles hundreds of millions of dollars related to exit fees and media rights. And that's a substantial sum of money, without question.

Complicating the matter even further is that there is a case transpiring in Florida, while the ACC is also suing FSU in North Carolina. A messy situation, I might add, and as I wrote about not too long ago, the ongoing legal fights between the ACC and Florida State as well as Clemson are an annoying and unfortunate distraction that takes attention away from what ACC schools are accomplishing with their fall sports thus far.