I got hit with a question from Rod Mullins at the end of our weekly auto-racing podcast about what I knew about the ACC and July 12.

The honest answer: huh?

A quick Google search led me to the musings of one Greg Swaim, a syndicated sports-radio guy, who seems to think that a July 12 hearing in a county court in South Carolina could be the beginning of the end of the ACC as we know it.

The backstory there is that Clemson, per a report from an outlet that goes by the name Clemson Insider, is seeking a summary judgment in its case alleging that the ACC’s grant of media rights is an unnecessary burden on the member schools, who, for their part, willingly entered into the agreement in 2016, and you would have to think had their lawyers review the contract language before they did so, and thus knew what they were signing.

I say that to then say, no, Clemson isn’t, and Florida State, which has filed a separate suit against the ACC, isn’t, either, getting out of the 2016 agreement without having to fork over ungodly sums of money.

The exit fees and media rights will come to a total in the $500 million range for schools looking to get out, which is a lot off the top, before you then factor in, where does a school that leaves the ACC end up?

Don’t think it’s automatic that the SEC or Big 10 is sitting there waiting for the ACC to break up.

Both have TV deals in place, and unless there’s language in the contracts that bumps up the overall TV money if new members are added that we don’t know about, there’s no incentive for either to take on more mouths to feed without having more money to spread around.

Nor is there, in the specific case of the SEC, whose TV rights are now in the hands of ESPN, any obvious opening to exploit to even be able to grow at the expense of the ACC, given that ESPN also owns the TV rights to the ACC.

We’re apparently supposed to think that ESPN would want to break up its ACC TV property to benefit its SEC TV property, for which it is paying significantly more per school than it is paying its ACC schools.

ESPN is making good money off the deal it signed with the ACC in 2016, and runs through 2036; the folks in Connecticut would be absolute fools to assent to that deal being broken.

And that’s what it would take here.

The contract isn’t just a deal between the member schools and the ACC; it’s also a deal between the ACC and ESPN, which isn’t going to sit idly by while the fate of its investment is being discussed.

Now, back to July 12: maybe something is afoot with either or both of Clemson and Florida State in terms of one or both of them thinking they’re going to make some sort of announcement about their future.

Even if that is the case, it wouldn’t come without significant money repercussions for one or both, and you can bet that any attempt of a school to leave is going to involve a pitched legal battle the scale of World War III.

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