Florida State's board of trustees will meet for a special meeting tomorrow morning. While no formal topic was announced for the meeting, sources told ESPN that the topic at hand will be the school's long-term athletic future. This will likely include a discussion to whether challenge the ACC's "grant of rights", potentially allowing Florida State to join another athletic conference.
Under the ACC's "grant of rights", schools are locked into the conference until the expiration of their media deal with ESPN in 2036. However, Florida State has spent the last year growing increasingly vocal about their discontent. Revenue gaps, revenue distribution, and the conference's overall standing in college athletics have all been raised as issues. However, the tipping point was Florida State's exclusion from the College Football Playoff. The Seminoles were left out in favor of Alabama, with the primary reason being that the SEC is a stronger conference than the ACC.
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Ron DeSantis Threatens To Sue The NCAA Over Florida State Snub
Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis asked the Florida state legislature for $1 million in their new budget. The intention is to use the money to sue the NCAA for excluding Florida State from the College Football Playoff. "My first-grader, my fifth-grader, and my preschooler - they are all Noles. They are big-time fans and they do the tomahawk chop and they were not happy. We are going to set aside $1 million and let the chips fall where they may," DeSantis told the chamber. However, it's largely a symbolic gesture. The college football season will be decided long before the budget is ratified.
Furthermore, the state AG Ashley Moody also launched an investigation into the CFP committee. "I'm a lifelong Gator, but I'm also the Florida attorney general, and I know injustice when I see it. No rational person or college football fan can look at this situation and not question the result. The NCAA, conferences and the College Football Playoff committee are subject to antitrust laws. My office is launching an investigation to examine if the committee was involved in any anticompetitive conduct. As it stands, the committee's decision reeks of partiality, so we are demanding answers -- not only for FSU, but for all schools, teams and fans of college football. In Florida, merit matters. If it's attention they were looking for, the committee certainly has our attention now," Moody said in a video filmed at Florida State's stadium.
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