The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request by the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) to pause a lawsuit filed by Florida State University (FSU) in an ongoing legal battle over sports media rights. The decision marks the latest development in a contentious dispute between the university and the North Carolina-based conference that has spanned more than a year and spawned dueling lawsuits in two states.
The Supreme Court, in keeping with its usual practice, offered no explanation for its denial of the ACC’s request to review a lower court’s ruling. The conference had turned to the state’s highest court last month after the 1st District Court of Appeal refused to grant a stay in FSU’s lawsuit, filed in Leon County in December 2023. That filing came just one day after the ACC preemptively sued FSU in North Carolina, setting the stage for a jurisdictional tug-of-war.
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At the heart of FSU’s lawsuit is the claim that the ACC has mismanaged its television contracts, leaving member schools financially shortchanged, and that the conference imposes steep penalties on any school attempting to exit. The ACC, however, maintains that FSU is bound by a contract granting the conference control over its media rights.
The Supreme Court filing centered on the ACC’s argument that FSU’s Leon County lawsuit should be halted while its North Carolina case proceeds, citing the legal “principle of priority,” which favors the first-filed case in multi-jurisdictional disputes. The conference’s attorneys, including former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson, framed the issue as a critical matter of federalism in their brief last month.
“The First District’s decision… may present the most important federalism issue that any member of this (Supreme) Court has, to date, had the privilege to consider,” the ACC wrote. “Contrary to decades of precedent, the decision undermines Florida’s role in our federal constitutional order and the stability and predictability of our law in ways that will profoundly destabilize our justice system if not corrected.”
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However, both Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper and a panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal rejected the ACC’s push for a stay. Cooper described the ACC’s North Carolina lawsuit as an “anticipatory filing,” launched after the conference learned of FSU’s intent to sue in Florida. In a February 11 brief to the Supreme Court, FSU defended Cooper’s ruling, arguing that trial judges have wide discretion over stays and that the appellate court appropriately upheld his decision.
“Trial judges have broad discretion on stays,” FSU’s attorneys wrote. “The First District faithfully applied Florida law to this ‘virtual classic case of anticipatory filing’ in declining to find an abuse of discretion.”
Thursday’s Supreme Court decision does not settle the broader legal conflict, which continues to unfold. Court documents from Leon County indicate that depositions of former FSU presidents John Thrasher and Eric Barron, along with former Athletic Director David Coburn, were scheduled for last week as part of the ongoing proceedings.
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The dispute has significant implications for FSU, the ACC, and the landscape of collegiate athletics, where media rights deals are a linchpin of revenue. As both cases move forward, the resolution could reshape the relationship between the university and the conference it has called home since 1992.
For now, the legal wrangling shows no signs of abating, leaving the future of FSU’s place in the ACC—and the financial stakes tied to its media rights—hanging in the balance.
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