ACC to Provide Secretive Media Rights Contracts at Center of FSU Lawsuit Following Action from Attorney General Moody

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Release Date
Jul 17, 2024
Contact
Kylie Mason
Phone
(850) 245-0150

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Floridians will finally get to see what the Atlantic Coast Conference is hiding in its effort to keep Florida State University from leaving the conference. Attorney General Ashley Moody just secured an agreement from the ACC’s attorneys to provide secretive media rights contracts at the center of the legal battle. The ACC capitulation follows legal action from Attorney General Moody demanding the conference make the contracts public in accordance with Florida’s Public Records Act. The contracts are at the heart of legal wrangling between FSU and the ACC over the school’s efforts to leave the conference and any fines or penalties associated with the departure. 

Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “Our office’s legal action has resulted in an agreement from the ACC to produce secret media contracts that are at the heart of the legal wrangling between FSU and the ACC. The conference refused to provide media contracts that detail the impact to FSU if it departs the conference, but now they are rightfully handing over these public records. We will continue to fight for transparency.”

Attorney General Moody recently took legal action against the ACC for wrongfully withholding public records from review. Under secret media rights contracts located somewhere in its North Carolina headquarters, the ACC made claims that could cost FSU more than half a billion dollars, and previously refused to provide the documents for review—requiring representatives from the public university to travel hundreds of miles to physically access the documents with a chaperone, wasting FSU’s time and costing thousands of dollars of public monies in unnecessary travel expenses. 

Now, in response to Attorney General Moody’s action, the ACC has notified the state of Florida that the following documents will be produced in accordance with the Florida Public Records Act:

  • 2010 ACC Multi-Media Agreement; 
  • 2012 Amendment and Extension Agreement; 
  • 2014 Second Amendment to Multi-Media Agreement; 
  • 2016 Amended and Restated ACC-ESPN Multi-Media Agreement; 
  • ACC-ESPN Network Agreement (2016); and 
  • Letter Amendment to Amended and Restated Multi-Media Agreement (Aug. 10, 2021).

Under the parties’ agreement, the ACC agreed to produce all the agreements to the Florida Attorney General's Office no later than Aug. 1.

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