UPDATE JULY 17:
In a news release issued Wednesday, Florida Attorney General, Ashley Moody, said her team just secured an agreement from the ACC’s attorneys to provide secretive media rights contracts at the center of the legal battle.
Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “Our office’s legal action has resulted in an agreement from the ACC to produce secret media contracts that are at the heart of the legal wrangling between FSU and the ACC. The conference refused to provide media contracts that detail the impact to FSU if it departs the conference, but now they are rightfully handing over these public records. We will continue to fight for transparency.”
According to the news release, the ACC has notified the state of Florida that the following documents will be produced in accordance with the Florida Public Records Act:
- 2010 ACC Multi-Media Agreement;
- 2012 Amendment and Extension Agreement;
- 2014 Second Amendment to Multi-Media Agreement;
- 2016 Amended and Restated ACC-ESPN Multi-Media Agreement;
- ACC-ESPN Network Agreement (2016); and
- Letter Amendment to Amended and Restated Multi-Media Agreement (Aug. 10, 2021).
Under the parties’ agreement, the ACC agreed to produce all the agreements to the Florida Attorney General's Office no later than Aug. 1.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
We're approaching seven months since the first lawsuits were filed on both sides of the court battle between Florida State University and the Atlantic Coast Conference.
And things are far from finished.
I'm Alberto Camargo, your College Town neighborhood reporter.
I've been on top of this since the beginning.
Here's where things stand now.
A new development on Wednesday afternoon: The ACC will be releasing its media rights documents to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.
She sued the ACC in April to get her hands on the agreements.
Here in Leon County, the lawsuit filed by the FSU Board of Trustees is going ahead.
FSU is suing the ACC for mishandling of media rights.
It's the main battle in the university's fight to potentially leave the conference and find better media rights deal elsewhere.
It's been one week since Leon County Judge John C. Cooper signed an order to have the ACC hand over the documents it has agreed to send to Moody.
I reached out to FSU's legal team to see if they have received the agreements.
I have not heard back yet.
The deadline for the ACC to send those documents to FSU is Thursday.
While this plays out in court — on FSU campus, students I spoke with say it's barely on their radar.
"I've heard about it, but I'm not going to lie, I don't really care about it. I have so much class, so many papers to do. Like tomorrow I have four papers due. So I was kind of working on that."
"Since I'm a freshman and just got here, I'm more concerned about getting to know the campus, meeting new people. Oh yeah, schoolwork, too."
Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the ACC is suing FSU for breach of contract.
FSU has asked the state's Supreme Court to review the denial of FSU's motion to dismiss that case.
Moody's office says that under the agreement, the ACC must provide the documents to Moody's office no later than Aug. 1.
In College Town, Alberto Camargo, ABC27.
ORIGINAL STORY:
A hearing is scheduled for a case involving Florida's Office of the Attorney General and the Atlantic Coast Conference. In April, Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a lawsuit against the Atlantic Coast Conference for withholding public records from review.
Attorney General Moody first took action in January, requesting the ACC to produce the contracts at the center of FSU’s fight to leave the ACC.
According to court documents, a final hearing will be held in person before the Honorable Angela C. Dempsey. Ninety minutes is set aside for the hearing and time will be divided as follows:
- 30 minutes for plaintiff
- 30 minutes for defendant
- 15 minutes for ESPN, Intervenor
The Court requests that the Amici Conferences attend the hearing and be available if the Court has questions, but the Amici Conferences will not otherwise be permitted to make a presentation.
In response to the attorney general's lawsuit, the ACC wrote in court documents, "the ACC is not subject to personal jurisdiction in the State of Florida, (2) the documents demanded by the Attorney General are not the public records of an agency of the State of Florida, and (3) the documents demanded by the Attorney General are trade secrets under Florida law and are exempt from disclosure."
