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- Dec 22, 2011
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The ACC’s grant of rights contract states member schools “irrevocably and exclusively grants to the conference during the term all rights necessary for the conference to perform the contractual obligations of the conference expressly set forth in the ESPN agreement..”
This is the school’s ADs & BOTs reviewed & signed off on.
Simply put, any TV revenue a school is due from the ACC’s contract with ESPN is conference property through June 30, 2036 regardless of whether the school remains an ACC member or leaves for another conference.
So pls tell me what the loophole in this that can be fought in court since it was the participating schools who willingly agreed to this.
Anyone can use the words "irrevocably" and "exclusively", and that's fine, but that's not what makes the contract so ironclad or not.
To be honest with you, about 25 years ago, I reviewed the covenants-not-to-compete that my brother's (idiot) business partner had modified from an online template, and he used a 25,000 mile distance.
I then asked my brother the significance of that number (he did not know) and I told him "that's the circumference of the earth". Therefore his idiot business partner thought he could bar competition ACROSS THE ENTIRE PLANET. I told my brother no court in the land would uphold that covenant, and then I proceeded to draft a much better one.
For the record, EVERY TIME my brother has gone to court with MY covenant-not-to-compete, he has won the case. Because mine set liquidated damages, not an absolute prohibition. My brother has collected quite a bit of money off of my document.
NOW, LET'S GET ON TO THE MORE IMPORTANT LANGUAGE:
"grants to the conference...all rights necessary for the conference to perform the contractual obligations of the conference expressly set forth in the ESPN agreement".
So...if the ESPN agreement...AND/OR the conference itself go away...then what in the **** are "all rights necessary...to perform the contractual obligations of the conference...in the ESPN agreement"?
I would argue that there no longer ARE any rights necessary to perform the ESPN agreement. Because there is no ACC. There's certainly not "the same ACC" that ESPN contracted with.
So unless ESPN wants to pay the FULL ACC CONTRACT PRICE for Syracuse, BC, Wake, USF, FAU, FIU, and a few other teams...then the GOR will disappear as if Thanos just snapped his fingers...