Clemson, Florida State reach settlement with ACC: What it means

Clemson and Florida State have declared an armistice with the ACC as all parties have come to a settlement that should keep the schools in the conference going forward.

James Parks | Mar 4, 2025

Clemson and Florida State have reached a truce with the ACC as the parties came to a settlement agreement. / Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

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It’s officially a truce between Clemson and Florida State on one side and the ACC on the other, as all parties ended their ongoing litigation after agreeing to a settlement that will change the conference’s revenue distribution system and brings down penalties for exiting members.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips thanked everyone involved for their part in getting the deal done and keeping the conference intact going forward.

“Today’s resolution begins the next chapter of this storied league and further solidifies the ACC as a premier conference,” Phillips said in a statement.

“As we look ahead to our collective long-term future, I want to express my deepest appreciation to the ACC Board of Directors for its ongoing leadership, patience, and dedication throughout this process.”

He added: “The league has competed at the highest level for more than 70 years and this new structure demonstrated the ACC embracing innovation and further incentivizing our membership based on competition and viewer results.”

Phillips said the settlement will allow the ACC to “focus on our collective future, including Clemson and Florida State, united in an 18-member conference demonstrating the best in intercollegiate athletics.”

Shortly after the ACC approved the terms, the boards of both Clemson and Florida State also approved the settlement.

“The ACC is an excellent fit for Clemson,” athletic director Graham Neff said.

“The academic prestige and reputation we so emphasize here at Clemson is a natural fit with other members of the ACC. The historic football success the league has had and that Clemson has had in the ACC and access to the College Football Playoff currently -- this is a great home for Clemson.”

It will also be more profitable, after the ACC agreed to a new method of distributing media revenue to higher-performing members in an effort to assuage concerns from more prominent schools that they weren’t getting enough compared to rivals in the SEC and Big Ten.

Clemson and Florida State both filed lawsuits against the ACC, challenging the league’s grant of rights agreement that would have forced the schools to pay reputed nine-figure sums to leave the conference before the expiration of that deal in 2036.

Now, the penalty to leave the ACC early has been greatly reduced. While the grant of rights still expires in 2036, the exit fee will be $165 million next year before falling to just $75 million in 2030. Any team that leaves the conference and pays the fee will keep its media rights in place.

But even more important will be the new way in which the ACC will distribute its media money.

Going forward, the ACC will fund the plan with a split in the conference’s media revenue, with 40 percent of the money handed out equally among legacy members, and the other 60 percent going to teams with greater media exposure, based on a five-year rolling average of TV ratings.

That’s enough to keep Clemson and Florida State, two of the ACC’s most important brand names, in the conference for the foreseeable future.

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