AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — When the annual ACC spring meetings begin Monday, there will be no way to avoid what has become the story overshadowing the conference: Its long-term future.

The ACC, Clemson and Florida State are embroiled in lawsuits over the grant of rights agreement that ostensibly keeps ACC schools in a TV contract through 2036 — an agreement those two schools argue is no longer financially competitive and that has their fans, according to a FOIA request made by ESPN, demanding they leave the league.

Clemson and Florida State will be at the meetings, participating in the league agenda. That agenda is expected to include discussions about the expanded College Football Playoff and resulting revenue distribution, a pending $2.7 billion settlement in antitrust cases involving the NCAA and ways to enhance revenue streams for the ACC.

The agenda is not expected to include discussions about the lawsuits. After all, Clemson and Florida State remain ACC members and consistently have been on league calls and Zooms since their lawsuits were filed. They have all tried to operate as if it is business as usual, but nothing has been normal over the past 18 months.

During spring meetings last year it was revealed seven schools — including Clemson and Florida State — had studied the grant of rights to determine a path forward and discussed potential exit strategies. That put the league on notice. Seven months later, the ACC and Florida State sued each other. This past March, Clemson and the ACC went to court.

Ahead of this year’s meetings, let’s look at how we got here and what comes next.

The lawsuits

ESPN filed a public records request to Florida State seeking emails and texts between Dec. 3 and Dec. 22 to determine how and when school officials decided to move forward with legal action. What came back were emails from angry fans, begging Florida State athletic director Michael Alford and university president Richard McCullough to do something.

The first emails started coming in Dec. 3, the same day the Seminoles became the first undefeated Power 5 school left out of the four-team College Football Playoff that began in 2014. For months, Florida State had expressed its dissatisfaction with the ACC over an impending revenue gap with the SEC and Big Ten, a gap Alford estimated would reach $30 million annually.

The previous August, the Florida State board of trustees met to discuss its long-term future. Trustee Justin Roth asked for an exit plan to leave the ACC by August 2024. Florida State lawyers then began coming up with a legal strategy to challenge the grant of rights, which transfers ownership of media rights from the school to the ACC and runs through 2036.

The playoff snub seemed to crystallize what had to be done. Less than an hour after the playoff announcement, a Florida State fan wrote in an email to Alford, “We must get out of the ACC or we are officially dead as a college football program … The time is now. We must do whatever it takes to get out. We beg of you to end this charade.”

Another email came in at roughly the same time, subject line “LEAVE THE ACC NOW”:

“We get no respect in this conference

We get no money in this conference

WHY ARE WE STILL HERE?”

On Dec. 4, one Seminole booster, whose name was redacted, wrote to Alford in response to a distribution list email in which he asked fans to redirect their “passion and support” and attend the Orange Bowl against Georgia.

“Really? Just move on like nothing just happened. Just spend thousands more dollars after getting slapped in the face … by an incompetent, low football IQ committee? No thanks. … We stuck with FSU through the 2015-2020 debacle only to have our players, coaches, Boosters, Administration and fans humiliated in front of the whole country. You and the FSU President need to stand up more publicly and find a way to start moving us out of the ACC. Maybe ask fans to divert Stadium renovation dollars to conference realignment costs as a small help. I know the cost of moving is monumental but the long term cost of not moving ASAP, may be more, and even permanent.”

Through the FOIA request, the only email that came back between Alford, McCullough and board of trustees chair Peter Collins regarding the school’s future plans was dated Dec. 21. Earlier that day, Florida State had announced it would hold a special board meeting Dec. 22 to discuss legal matters related to the athletic department.

In two emails Dec. 21, Alford sent Collins a list of questions he could be asked at the board meeting. Alford wrote:

How confident should we be about this when there has been no known legal challenge to a grant of rights.

Why should we be confident in the correct outcome?

Have we TRULY exhausted EVERY possible avenue for discussion of a tenable solution short of legal action?

On Dec. 22, the Florida State board voted to sue the ACC in Leon County, Florida, seeking to void the grant of rights and withdrawal fee as “unreasonable restraints of trade in the state of Florida and not enforceable in their entirety against Florida State.”

In his comments to the board, Collins and McCullough told the board they felt they had, indeed, exhausted every possible option and had no choice but to file a lawsuit. “These things are timely and you can’t wish and hope that somehow they’ll get fixed in the next year two, three, four, five. By that time, I don’t think that we’ll be competitive,” McCullough said.

The same day, it became publicly known the ACC decided to file a lawsuit in North Carolina first to defend the grant of rights and league members on Dec. 21.

At the time, there was rampant speculation that Clemson would be next to file. Both schools had been described as being in “lockstep” with each other, sharing similar concerns about their long-term futures in a conference that could not keep up financially. The key difference between the two, as one person close to the situation described it, was the playoff snub.

Clemson ultimately filed its lawsuit three months later in March, in South Carolina. As a result, the ACC sued Clemson in North Carolina, and argued in its suit that Clemson indicated a “desire to work with the conference” regarding its own membership and “requested confidentiality and protections that the ACC would not file a lawsuit against it.”

Since then, Clemson has filed an amended complaint seeking damages, as the school accused the league of “slander of title,” arguing the ACC was able to strengthen its position through the grant of rights, while diminishing Clemson’s.

Two other schools, Miami and North Carolina, had been proactively looking at the grant of rights with the same urgency as Clemson and Florida State at this time last year. But at this point, Miami has no plans to pursue the same legal strategy. Athletic director Dan Radakovich told a local radio station several months ago, “Here at the University of Miami we are incredibly solid with the ACC.”

North Carolina is in a trickier situation. UNC board chair John Preyer has expressed a desire to weigh all options, but no action has been taken. It should be noted UNC has an interim chancellor, Lee H. Roberts, that makes it more challenging to take action. Further complicating matters, the UNC system board of governors in February passed a policy that requires its public schools to gain approval to move conferences from the board and the UNC system president.

Where do all the lawsuits stand?

There are five total lawsuits ongoing: the ACC vs. Clemson; the ACC vs. Florida State; Clemson vs. the ACC; Florida State vs. the ACC, plus a lawsuit Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed against the ACC in April, seeking to make public the ESPN-ACC television contract as part of Florida State’s case.

The judge in Clemson’s case in South Carolina ruled this month that the ACC must provide an unredacted copy of the ESPN contract to Clemson, though it will remain confidential and can be used only as part of the case.

In North Carolina, the next court hearing in the ACC’s case against Clemson is scheduled for July 2. Clemson recently filed a motion to dismiss the case. In the ACC’s case against Florida State, Judge Louis Bledsoe denied its motion to dismiss. Florida State has said it will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, and no court date has been set.

In South Carolina, the ACC filed a motion to dismiss the case on May 7. In Florida, Cooper referred the ACC and Florida State to mediation. The two sides have been unable to agree on a mediator, so Cooper granted an extension until May 31 to choose one.

The bottom line is all parties expected a protracted legal battle to play itself out, and there is no incentive — at least at the moment — to negotiate a settlement or resolution.

So what about this year’s meetings?

At last year’s spring meetings there were fireworks on the first day after it was revealed publicly that seven schools had conducted discussions about the future of the conference. Those not involved in the discussions felt blindsided. So did ACC commissioner Jim Phillips. One AD described the tenor as an “airing of grievances.”

Once they cleared the air, they were able to come to an agreement on “success initiatives” to reward on-field and on-court success — pushed forward largely by Alford, as a way to acknowledge Florida State’s concerns over the widening revenue gap. Phillips presented a unified front when the meetings wrapped, saying he believed, “We’re all in this together.”

Now, a year later, Clemson, Florida State and the ACC are in a fight for their own long-term futures. Nobody knows how their legal battles will play out, but they still have to find a way to work together. Phillips has pledged to continue to fully support Clemson and Florida State athletes for as long as they remain conference members.

With the impending antitrust case settlements and a potential framework for a new collegiate model that would share revenue with student-athletes, it’s more imperative than ever to find more revenue streams for the ACC. This is especially true following the recent news that payouts from the newly expanded CFP will not be distributed evenly, leaving the ACC behind the SEC and Big Ten once again — further proving that a “Power 2” exists.

Adding to the dynamic will be the presence of new members Stanford, Cal and SMU — three schools added last fall to help shore up the ACC long term. The league will continue to move forward discussing league business and will celebrate the success stories and team championships won this athletic season during a reception Tuesday night — all while uncertainty hangs in the background.

The NCAA and its schools are considering a proposed solution to one of the largest looming obstacles remaining for a landmark settlement of the association’s antitrust cases, which could shape the future of major collegiate sports in America.

With the college sports industry aiming to avoid future antitrust lawsuits, the terms of a settlement would establish an annual process giving new players a chance to opt in or object to revenue-sharing terms currently being negotiated as part of the emerging framework for the future business model of the NCAA’s top schools.

The NCAA and its most powerful conferences are in the thick of working toward settling the House v. NCAA case this month, with sources saying leagues are planning to vote on a proposed deal by May 23. ESPN spoke to more than a dozen legal and industry experts in college sports this week to better understand the ongoing negotiations.

The tentative terms of the settlement include the NCAA paying more than $2.7 billion in past damages as well as setting up a system for its most powerful conferences to share a portion of their revenue with athletes moving forward. One major obstacle to reaching a settlement has been finding a way for the NCAA and its schools to protect themselves from future lawsuits, including potential claims they would be colluding to cap player compensation without using a collective bargaining agreement.

Steve Berman, the co-lead counsel representing athletes in the House case, told ESPN he and his team have proposed a solution that would extend the class-action settlement on an annual basis. In this scenario, athletes would receive a notice each year providing them with the opportunity to object to the terms of the revenue-share agreement. Berman said those athletes would then have the chance to attend a hearing and persuade the judge that the revenue-share arrangement was unfair in order to push for a change.

“Each year we would have a hearing where any new athlete who wasn’t previously bound [by the settlement] can come and object,” Berman said. “They would have to come and say, ‘I don’t think this is fair.’ That would be a hard burden to prove.”

An NCAA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Some athlete organizers say they are skeptical a rolling annual opt-in mechanism would be enough to dissuade future players from filing lawsuits to push for a bigger share of money in future years.

Sources say revenue sharing with athletes would begin, at the earliest, in the summer of 2025. The settlement would also serve to resolve three other active antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA.

The details of a settlement and their implications on how schools spend their money remain in flux. But with leagues expected to vote within the next two weeks, details are growing more clear as leaders in the industry weigh their options and sort through several remaining questions about how a future business model will work.

Why would an annual hearing be necessary?

In professional sports, the amount of revenue a league shares with its players is typically negotiated through a collective bargaining agreement between the league and a players’ union. Collective bargaining agreements completed with a certified union are exempt from antitrust challenges in court. That legal protection would not apply, however, in college sports if athletes are not deemed to be employees when schools start sharing their revenue.

The NCAA and its schools have been firmly opposed to a model where athletes are viewed as employees.

There are multiple pending cases in front of the National Labor Relations Board where athletes and their advocates are arguing that players should be employees and have the right to unionize, but those cases could take years to reach a conclusion. Others such as the College Football Players Association — one of several groups seeking to organize college athletes — have proposed asking Congress to create a special status for college athletes that would allow them to collectively bargain without being employees. But again, Congress has been slow to reach consensus on any federal legislation that could help chart a course forward for college sports despite several years of requested help from the NCAA.

The current House case is a class-action lawsuit that applies to all current Division I college athletes. That means future college athletes would not be bound by the terms of a settlement reached this year. Berman and his colleagues are hoping that giving each incoming group of new players an option to join the class will provide the schools with enough confidence that their agreement will be hard to challenge with future litigation.

What are the chances of a settlement happening?

There are so many moving parts that nothing is definitive, but sources from both sides of the case appear to be optimistic they are making substantial progress toward a settlement.

The NCAA has worked furiously toward settling, including agreeing to pick up the more than $2.7 billion in past damages over the next 10 years. If the case goes to trial and a judge rules against the NCAA, the association and its schools could be on the hook for more than $4 billion in damages.

Sources told ESPN that NCAA president Charlie Baker was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday meeting with more than a half-dozen Senators, a previously scheduled trip where he’s staying engaged with current Senate leaders about potential future legislation.

The belief in the industry is that all the power conferences have the majority votes to settle, which will be up to their schools’ top administrators. There are a few individual schools that are skeptical of settling — some of those overlap with the schools that supported the idea of forming a new “super league” that would radically reshape the entire structure of college athletics. While some believe a more complete overhaul is needed, sources told ESPN there’s essentially zero chance of a super league emerging in the near future.

To the majority, the idea of a league deciding to battle Berman and fellow lead attorney Jeffrey Kessler in court and face billions in damages isn’t too appetizing — especially with the NCAA paying the back damages.

Here’s the breakdown of the landscape, according to multiple industry sources: The Big Ten is generally on board with settling. The SEC has some detractors of settling but is trending to a majority. The Big 12 is expected to follow along. There’s some dissension in the ACC, which has amplified why Florida State and Clemson are suing to leave the league, but sources say it’s unlikely the ACC will end up voting against it.

It’s also important to note here that a vote for settling doesn’t mean all of the key details will have been ironed out. The notion of capping the size of a team’s roster as part of this new business model, for example, has generated buzz in athletic director and coaching circles. But details like what a football roster would be capped at — and the fate of walk-ons — are not expected to be decided until after the vote, per sources.

“It’s so early in that conversation, it’s hard to speculate,” a source said. “There’s a lot more work there. You want to build consensus across multiple conferences.”

Also, any potential help from Congress that Baker is courting wouldn’t come until well after the settlement.

“It gives us a better hand to play with Congress,” an industry source said. “They were looking for something from us. This injects a lot in that conversation. This is a good start.”

How much money will schools be spending on future payments to athletes?

Sources told ESPN that while terms could change, the current proposal would create a spending cap for each power-conference school based on 22% of the average media rights, ticket sales and sponsorship revenue of each power-conference school. Sources say they expect that cap number to be nearly $20 million per school. Schools would not be required to spend that much money on their athletes but would have the option to share up to that $20 million figure with them.

The cap number could change every few years to reflect changes in the overall revenue of schools. It’s not clear whether some money the schools already provide to their athletes — such as an academic reward of roughly $6,000 commonly referred to as Alston payments — would count toward that cap. Multiple sources did tell ESPN that donations from boosters are not included in the revenue formula.

How will they divide that money among their athletes?

There are no specific provisions in the proposed settlement that spell out how schools should distribute money to athletes, according to sources. Each individual school would be responsible for deciding which athletes to pay and sorting through the uncertainty around how that money would apply to Title IX regulations, per multiple sources.

Title IX requires colleges to provide equal opportunities for men and women to compete in varsity sports and provide equitable benefits to those athletes. The law, written long before athletes were earning money beyond their scholarships, does not clearly state how the federal government views direct payments to athletes. Does equitable treatment require a school to give the same dollar amount to men and women athletes in the new revenue-share model? Or would the payments be viewed more as a benefit that could be proportional to the money generated by each sport? Would scholarship dollars and additional revenue-share dollars be considered in the same financial category when balancing the Title IX ledgers?

“The truth is, no one knows,” a source told ESPN on Friday.

While the Department of Education or Congress could provide answers proactively, neither has demonstrated any urgency to do so at this point. Specific interpretations of Title IX often come through litigation, and in this instance, a group of athletes might need to file a lawsuit about how their school is handling these direct payments to establish clarity.

Until then, the most conservative approach for schools to ensure Title IX compliance would mean evenly splitting the new revenue-share dollars between men and women athletes. Sources say some schools might try to balance the overall spending by increasing scholarship opportunities on their women’s teams, but it remains unclear whether that would satisfy Title IX regulations. Others might seek a competitive advantage in football recruiting, for example, by arguing that equitable treatment for athletes in the case of revenue sharing should be based on the revenue their sports generate.

Sources also said the settlement won’t require schools to share money with all athletes or share it evenly among athletes — leaving those decisions up to individual athletic departments as well.

What happens to collectives and NIL payments?

According to a source, the settlement does not include any provision that would put an end to the booster collectives that currently serve as the main vehicle for paying athletes. School officials hope a settlement will create a way to strengthen the NCAA’s ability to enforce its rules, including its rule that requires NIL payments to be for a player’s market value as opposed to the current system, which frequently serves as a workaround for “pay-for-play” arrangements. However, drawing a distinction between those two types of payments would remain a difficult, nebulous task. Any attempt to completely eliminate the NIL collective market would take a substantial change in federal law provided by Congress.

The NCAA has created new rules this spring that allow schools to be more directly involved in finding NIL deals for their athletes. New state laws are also opening doors for the schools to use their own money to pay for an athlete’s NIL rights as opposed to those funds coming from a third party. The extent to which each school continues to be involved in finding NIL opportunities for its athletes in a future with revenue sharing could vary significantly.

“The feeling in the industry is that collectives are going to be forced to stay outside the universities, and it will become more of a discrepancy of the haves and have-nots,” said an industry source. “If you bring collectives in, any money raised would count toward the cap. But schools can hit the cap and still have collectives as third parties. That’s the fear, and why there needs to be regulation.”

What does this mean for major college basketball and leagues outside power conferences?

It’s still relatively uncertain how this would impact major college basketball schools outside of the power conferences.

Schools in the Big East, which is the most prominent basketball-forward league in the country, haven’t been given any formal guidance on how a settlement would trickle down to their level.

The prevailing sentiment is that leagues outside the power conferences named in the lawsuit, including basketball-forward leagues, will have the opportunity to opt into the same 22% revenue-share formula, which would be applied to their specific revenue.

The most expensive men’s college basketball rosters heading into next season are commanding $5 million to $7 million in NIL payments, per sources. It’s too early to determine whether leagues outside the power football conferences will be able to pay that much through revenue sharing.

The uncertainty about how the power conferences will settle the antitrust claims is leaving many administrators outside those leagues in what they describe as a difficult situation.

“All of the Group of 5 is in a wait-and-see mode, which is a precarious situation,” one source told ESPN. “It is extremely tough to lead athletic departments, universities and conferences and plan for the future — whether that be facilities, NIL, etc. — when you have no seat at the table to make the rules that will impact you.”

LOS ANGELES — The University of California Board of Regents is expected to accept a recommendation that UCLA pay University of California at Berkeley $10 million a year for six years as a result of the Bruins’ upcoming move to the Big Ten and the demise of the Pac-12.

The recommendation was made by UC president Michael Drake and will be voted on during a regents meeting Tuesday at UC Merced.

In order for the Regents to affirm UCLA’s move to the Big Ten in December, 2022, the university agreed to pay UC Berkeley between $2 million and $10 million because of how the move would affect the Cal athletic program.

Cal agreed to join the Atlantic Coast Conference last year after the Pac-12 couldn’t negotiate a media deal, causing eight of its members to leave.

Besides increased travel costs, Cal will have a reduced share of the ACC’s media rights deal.

According to a report by UC’s president, the difference between UCLA’s annual media rights distribution from the Big Ten and UC Berkeley’s share from the ACC will be approximately $50 million per year.

Drake is also recommending that if there is a significant change in revenues and/or expenses for either school, exceeding 10% over 2024-25 projections, UCLA’s contribution can be reevaluated by the regents.

UCLA and the University of Southern California announced on June 30, 2022, that they were leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. USC is private and not part of the UC system.

The Regents became involved shortly after the announcement when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized UCLA’s move because chancellor Gene Block and athletic director Martin Jarmond did not give advance notice to the regents.

In 1991, campus chancellors were delegated authority by the UC Office of the President to execute their own contracts, including intercollegiate athletic agreements. But the regents heard during an August 2022, meeting that they retain the authority to review decisions impacting the UC system, meaning they could affirm, overturn or abstain from following up on UCLA’s decision.

The Regents voted four months later to let the move go ahead. Besides the payments to its sister school, UCLA agreed to make further investments for athletes, including nutritional support, mental health services, academic support while traveling and charter flights to reduce travel time.

“From the very beginning we said we understand we may need to help Berkeley. We’re OK with it and happy it is resolved,” Block said after the regents approved the move.