I've clicked on this thread a few times this year and you seem to be the most informed and most dedicated to providing information and details to the platform and for that I thank you. In saying that, most of what you say I can't comprehend. My question is about the end game here. Where do you see the University of Miami and when do you think that will happen? If you answered this recently, my apologies.
It's all good. I try as hard as I can to make the legalistic stuff understandble for everyone. My apologies if I do not always succeed as much as I intend to.
I'll try to simplify, and if you have follow-up questions, fire away.
1. Being a member of a conference (the ACC) is governed by a document, such as the ACC Constitution. This document provides for entry/exit and the costs to do so. We are free to leave the ACC any time we want to, we merely give notice and pay the exit fee. This part is clear and simple.
2. Separately, there may also be media rights contracts and related agreements that add a layer of complexity. 100 years ago, these simply did not exist (OK, maybe a radio contract did). More recently, since the Supreme Court case in the early 1980s, conferences have become a mechanisim for contracting with TV networks and other media companies to create and broadcast content.
3. Finally, in recent decades, networks have ASKED FOR Grant of Rights agreements to negotiate TV contracts, but conferences have also MISUSED Grant of Rights agreements to create additional fear/monetary penalties IN ADDITION TO the exit fees in #1 above.
So to answer your SIMPLE question, the "end game" is to exit ALL of the legal entanglements of the ACC, not just #1 above, which is simple.
And to DO SO, we have to do a lot more than just pay our exit fee in #1 above. Meaning, we either need to pay the vague and MASSIVE damages for breaching the GOR...or else we need to challenge the GOR and try to get out of THAT deal with paying zero.
I have argued for Miami, hopefully with other schools, but on our own if necessary, to challenge the validity of the GOR. If you can break the GOR directly, then all you have to do is write the exit fee check, and you are home free.
BUT, until someone actually KNOWS how to get out of a GOR with certainty (either by paying penalties or challenging the validity), other conferences are HESITANT to even invite us, let alone accept us into the membership, without knowing if we even HAVE media rights to add to the new conference.
---I think Miami knows the ACC is dead-man-walking and DOES want to exit, presumably for the Big 10.
---I think Miami does NOT want to be sued, as we were when we left the Big East for the ACC.
---I think Miami is not certain enough of how to get out of the GOR (yet) to take the risk of challenging the GOR directly ON OUR OWN.
---I think Miami is interested in working with allies/frenemies, but F$U has been a lone wolf and nobody else seems to have the stones. For now.
---I think Miami was a natural ally with Clemson, but if reports are correct that Clemson does not have a guaranteed spot with either the SEC or Big 10, then it's entirely possible that they have cold feet now.
The "endgame" is to exit the ACC for another conference, presumably a P2 conference (Big 10/SEC). But no conference will engrave an invitation for us until the GOR issue is resolved, one way or another. TV networks could intervene as white knights to assist in an orderly reshuffling of rights. But thus far, nobody has really put anything on the line, nobody has truly risked anything.
So if we have to kill the GOR, that seems like the most direct path to freedom. And I'm down with that strategy.
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