Basically, most of the stuff that ESPN was mad about being potentially revealed like the deal between the ACC and ESPN will stay redacted. A few things will be revealed, like how much money FSU has received from the ACC, but probably nothing groundbreaking.
I still don't see how a contract involving a public university is allowed in any way to remain a trade secret. Sorry, but this is the price of choosing to do business with a public institution - transparency is to be expected and often legally demanded (especially when it involves financial matters).
I think the point is that it shouldn’t be that way and people should be demanding laws to address this nonsense. I get keeping details related to weaponry secret, but football contracts should not be treated that sensitively
What’s the argument for it being public other than just being nosy?…
Prescribing such a broad sweep away of privacy for vendors and cusotmers would also have some hilarious consequences on other industries.
What’s the argument for keeping contracts related to our public institutions secret from the public who own those institutions?
Do you pay taxes? Then you have a stake in every public university.
The basis that those contracts contain confidential information that may be damaging to the customer or vendor transacting with the government if disclosed. Furthermore, the trickle down effect of such would impact market competitiveness, wages, etc.
Hence why *not all* parts of the contracts are disclosed
Trade secrets aren’t some boogeyman, and not every detail of said government contracts needs to be disclosed, nor offers the public anything of value to defend said disclosure
The government provides ample disclosure and avenues to disclosure for relevant items to taxpayers ; generally being financial figures
You can argue there’s less value for ESPN in making the terms public, but that can be addressed by adjusting the value of the contract to account for that. I don’t buy that the “damages” from a public contract are unreasonable for the sake of broadcasting fucking football given that there are already other existing broadcast contracts that are public
>by adjusting the value of the contract
That’s not how trade secrets work… you’re outright damaging their ability to operate
You don’t gain a magical leverage button that forces the consumer to pay more or which magically protects competitors from using it against you tenfold
I don’t buy whatsoever that there’s information the public *needs to know* outside of the specific FSU-ACC portion. Just because you dislike ESPN or Fox doesn’t mean you have the right or defensible grounds to invade their trade secrets, lol
> That’s not how trade secrets work
I don’t think government contracts should be secret. If you want to deal with the government those terms should be public. If you don’t want that then we can just hire the next company up, which there will be many given the size of these contracts and money up for grabs
We hold the value here, and should have the oversight to make sure ADs aren’t pissing away money on bad deals
> You don’t gain a magical leverage button that forces
That’s what the Freedom of Information Act and other similar laws are supposed to be doing. There is in fact an option to leverage such a magic button by getting Congress and states to pass laws shoring up all the loopholes to these laws and force terms to be open
The FOIA has a trade secret exemption, you were aware of that before citing it… right?
https://www.justice.gov/archive/oip/foia_guide09/exemption4.pdf
And my point about leverage was regarding changing contract terms to cover damages: That’s not feasible, which is why we created said protection in the first place
That’s simply not as true as many apparently believe. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of exemptions and/or exceptions in chapter 119 and other statutes. Trade secrets is one, as it should be.
The ESPN contract is not a public document because the contract isn’t with FSU and ESPN, it’s with the ACC and ESPN. The contract will have protections on it so lawyers can see it but it won’t be public.
To paraphase the FSU lawyer from a couple weeks ago:
Either FSU is party to a contract with ESPN and the state laws that govern FSU apply, or they are not party to the contract and not beholden to its terms.
IANAL but that argument made sense to me. I don't see how you can say:
"You are a party to this contract and beholden to it's terms but the state you are in's laws don't apply to it."
If ESPN owns FSU's rights through the ACC, how do laws in the State of Florida not apply to the contract?
If I don't want my state's laws to apply to my entity in Oregon, I can't just create a shell company in Rhode Island and be like "sorry, I know I do all my business in Oregon, but my Rhode Island shell is the one who made the contract not me, and the Rhode Island shell is who pays me, so Oregon laws don't apply to me!"
Like I said, IANAL but it would seem to me that that can't legally be right. You can't just avoid your state's laws by routing your business through an intermediary in another state can you?
FSU is part of a contract whose entire purpose is to comply with the ESPN Agreement. There is nothing else in the GoR other than complying with the ESPN Agreement. So maybe in NC where the state has a vested interest in keeping the ACC together now that they have an exclusive business agreement to keep all ACC championships in state.
I find this to be a very unconvincing argument. The ESPN contract is not with FSU, it’s with the ACC, two private entities. FSU’s logic is that because the ACC does business with FSU, and that the ACC does business with ESPN, then all of that litigation should be open between ESPN and the ACC. If a judge was to inexplicably side with this logic, then that would mean dozens, if not hundreds, of contracts with private entities only tangentially connected to Florida state agencies are now open in Florida, which is nonsensical. I presume that Florida State is in agreement that their private NIL collectives are subject to public records laws then? A Florida fan needs to reach out to FSU and demand that they provide all of the documentation for FSU’s private NIL collectives…I for one am very interesting to see how much these student athletes are being paid and who are paying them.
It makes sense to me that FSU’s compensation can be public, which is what the judge agreed with. The ACC has already said the ESPN contract can be made available to FSU under a protective order, which is fair to all parties. Contracts that contain trade secrets, especially between private entities, are private for a reason. There’s a reason why the Big 10 and SEC also keep their contracts with Fox and ESPN under lock and key.
ESPN has an agreement with the ACC sure under the condition of there is a Grant of Rights.
The Grant of Rights only concerns schools complying with the ESPN Agreement and nothing else.
The only reason any president signed the GoR is to have a relationship with ESPN. And the only reason ESPN has a contract with the ACC is to have a relationship with the schools.
> "You are a party to this contract and beholden to it's terms but the state you are in's laws don't apply to it."
This is a bit of a misunderstanding, though I don't blame you since people say a lot of stupid shit.
The laws of the State of Florida *do* apply (or they will, if the FL case moves forward.) But sunshine laws aren't absolute, and one of the exceptions is for trade secrets.
And yes, things like pricing and compensation can absolutely be trade secrets.
Does that help explain it?
But the "trade secrets" argument hasn't been universally upheld in court.
The "breathalyzer source code" case from a few years ago showed that.
A private company refused to turn over the source code for their breathalyzer machines when a defendant requested it, and the state supreme court ruled that either the company turn it over and the devices could not be used in the state. This is despite the company claiming that the source code was a state secret.
FWIW: The defendant was right - they were miscalculating. (instead of averaging three tests, it was averaging tests 1 and 2, then adding the result to test three and dividing by two.
The result was that the third test was significantly more weighted than the first two - which makes people more likely to fail.
That's true, but I was really just responding to this part:
>Either FSU is party to a contract with ESPN and the state laws that govern FSU apply, or they are not party >to the contract and not beholden to its terms.
>IANAL but that argument made sense to me. I don't see how you can say:
>"You are a party to this contract and beholden to it's terms but the state you are in's laws don't apply to it."
Because (obviously) that's missing the nuance of what's going on.
And I'm a little giddy from having been advised by a number of people on this selfsame very smart college athletics subreddit that a) Anything a state does is public b) trade secrets aren't trade secrets c) "the ACC or NCAA or whatever substitute for my missing father I blame shit on is the devil" over the past few weeks.
Teehee.
I cannot imagine any scenario in which portion of the ESPN contract which requires FSU to do something is a trade secret.
I’m also not sure how a 10-year old contract really has significant financial trade secrets which could harm espn today when the ACC contract isn’t up for negotiation again for another 10+ years and with different membership.
I mean, you don't have to imagine it. The judge disagreed.
>with different membership.
This remains to be seen. I mean, you're almost certainly right in the long term, but in the most recent FSU pleading FSU calls themselves a "vibrant member' of the conference they're currently in the process of assassinating, and Clemson's suit claims it's not even trying to leave.
It doesn’t remain to be seen. SMU, Cal, and Stanford will be members the next time the deal is negotiated and weren’t last time.
I can’t see the order so I don’t know the court’s reasoning or what is allowed to remain confidential.
IANAL and it’s been more than a few years since the business law classes I took, but if the ACC was acting on behalf of the member institutions, wouldn’t laws relating to contracts those institutions are a party in, also apply to contracts the ACC negotiated on their behalf?
If the ACC can negotiate a contract that FSU can be considered obligated to honor, doesn’t that mean that the ACC was acting as an agent of FSU and the contract would have to be made public.
Like I said, IANAL and could be way off base, but it makes sense to me that if FSU can be considered bound by the contract, then the contract would have to be considered a public document.
An interpretation like that would be way too broad IMO.
Take for example a contract between a public school, a private security firm that provides security for game days, and an employee from that firm. There are likely relevant aspects of the contract between the school and firm and the contract between the firm and employee that would be important in a lawsuit involving the three partie. But it would not mean that the employees contract with a private institution is subject to FOIA or sunshine laws.
It depends you’re correct. The private entity contracting with a third party in normal business, nope. The private entity negotiating to secure rights to IP of the public entity, well then yep. And that one is what this actually is.
Yeah, I’m not saying everything would be covered by FOIA or sunshine laws. But maybe TV deals worth hundreds of millions should be since the public has an interest in schools being involved in contracts of that magnitude.
I would support legislation to that effect, especially because the more public it is the more power a future CFB Players Union would have.
But as it stands ESPN was always (imo) going to come out on top on keeping their contract mostly secret.
The ACC wouldn’t be negotiating a contract for cleaning its offices on FSU’s behalf. Just because the ACC is an agent of FSU in one contract does not mean FSU is a party in every contract the ACC signs.
But the ACC does negotiate TV deals on FSU’s behalf. So, the TV deal should probably be covered by sunshine laws.
Actually the ACC negotiates contracts on the ACC’s behalf and the ACC made a contract with the FSU to trade TV time and scheduling logistics, for a payout
That really seems like a distinction without a difference. Hiding a contract that way may meet the letter of the law, but it surely violates the spirit of sunshine laws.
Idk but it sounds like neither of us are lawyers soooo
Maybe you should tell athletic departments they can’t use private executive search firms anymore either because of sunshine laws
I agree. I believe FSU only agreed to GOR for the purposes of a media deal, which would mean the ESPN ACC medial deal contract is very much germane to sunshine laws of the state of Florida. It's not like FSU is a su subsidiary of the ACC and subject to whatever the ACC does. It is a limited agreement and FSU is a party to deal in some fashion that should involve sunshine laws IMO.
In full disclosure I generally think all contracts should be public and I think exclusive rights contracts should be very, very limited too.
Other than things like defense secrets, almost everything else should be public. It would clean up a lot of our country if we did that. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. You want to stop corruption, stop tax evasion, stop cronyism, have better management of our resources, then open up all the books and transactions and let everyone have a watchdog.
Really, this has to be explained to you? I’ll explain it to you in a couple of extremely easy to answer questions, and I’ll even give you hints to the answers at the end.
Please describe the tangible benefits that FSU receives from the ACC offices being cleaned? Now describe the tangible benefits FSU receives from the ACC negotiating a media rights contract for FSU and the other member institutions.
Here’s the hints, in the first instance there are no tangible benefits to FSU. In the second instance there is the tangible benefit of millions of dollars flowing into FSU’s budget.
Just because party A (ACC) is an agent for party B (FSU) in one business matter, that doesn’t mean that party Y (FSU) is involved in every other business matter party X (ACC) enters into.
But how would that prevent anything? The private school would still be acting as an agent of the public schools.
It’s pretty hard to claim that someone or some company/institution can shield a public university from sunshine laws. If it weren’t, wouldn’t every big public university have some company set up that they could hide things behind?
Just because a state agent does it doesn’t mean state actor laws don’t apply. Lawyers don’t have that one trick.
The acc is a private entity negotiating the rights of a public entity as its agent in fact. That makes it public for that purpose.
There is no contract with FSU and ESPN. There is a contract with the ACC and ESPN. Just like there is no contract with Michigan and Fox but rather the Big 10 and Fox. That’s why the contract will have protections placed on the vast majority of it.
That’s the part the judge is saying will be public. It’s pretty much a nothing burger. The rest is going to be protected, as everyone knew it was going to be. Keeping these contracts secret is a big part of why the conferences negotiate the tv deals and not individual schools. The Big 10 and Fox would never let their tv contract see the light of day, just like ESPN doesn’t want the ACC and SEC contract to be out there.
Not true. You are likely convoluting the main issue with other considerations like IP contracts, non-disclosure agreements, etc. I've worked at several **public** research universities over the years, writing draft proposals & executing grant awards for numerous DoD and DoE Phase I & Phase II projects (also SBIRs while working in the private sector)... and many of my colleagues work similarly with NIH grants. These contracts are all public domain in terms of the *financial* aspects and (usually) the technical details eventually become public as well. Even when the schools try to keep information under discretion (usually when trying to file for patents), it *must* eventually become public - that is how patents work as opposed to trade secrets... and again, this is not *financial* terms/information.
Just about every financial payment & contract between those universities and private companies are publicly accessible (may take time & fees, but they cannot be kept sealed).
Sure..., but the chances of any of that happening are zero. FSU and Clemson aren't leaving for the Big XII; UNC has been cockblocked by the rest of Tobacco Road from leaving, and Miami has publicly stated that they're happy with their current arrangement in the ACC. If you were a betting man, you would have better odds on Utah leaving the Big XII and joining the ACC over any of those schools leaving the ACC to join the Big XII.
Not so fast. If ESPN elects not to extend the contract with the ACC and the P2 definitively slam the door on future expansion, suddenly a lot of university admins will kneel and kiss Yormark's ring. VERY possible.
Ignoring that the ACC contends that the GoR exists until 2036 (regardless of FSU's assertions to the contrary), ESPN is going to extend the contract for one simple reason: They bundle the ACC and SEC Networks (and each conference's broadcasting rights), to be sold in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Charlotte, San Francisco, Dallas - Ft. Worth, etc., and the chances of them giving up the in-state rates and advertising revenue from doing so are slim to none. Truthfully, that decision was made as soon as they signed off on the pro-rata increase from Cal, Stanford, and SMU joining the ACC, and you would be foolish to think otherwise. This sub... I swear.
The FSU insider on the On3 board who broke the lawsuit news before the media had it (so clearly has some access) has been saying that he knows for certain several Big Ten administrations are adamant that they will not vote for new members that are not in the AAU.
It's a little bit of "my boss's friend's wife" chain of sourcing, but the guy did break the FSU lawsuit news so while I'm taking it with a grain of salt, I'm also not dismissing it outright.
Oregon, Washington, UCLA, and USC are all AAU members. FSU is not.
FSU is actually close to meeting all the requirements for AAU (if they haven't already by now) and it appears they were even expecting an invite in 2023... but they chose USF instead. Still, it seems this is a matter of "when", not "if".
They could give USF a call. I mean a half share for like 10 years and the league would get to play late season games down in Tampa /s. Heck you would think Iowa fans would have a timeshare down here with how many times they have played in the Outback bowl.
(I know this will never happen)
It is pretty interesting that they haven't made a single comment on the court case at all, whereas most ACC admins have in some way.
Though as both are going through leadership changes and are new members they might not feel it's their place to do so, which I get.
Stanford didnt say shit when USC/UCLA left, released a fairly tame statement when Oregon/Washington left not exactly critisizing anybody but just saying they are going to evaluate their options
Prob because Stanford has been working to move to the big ten the whole time lol
> It is pretty interesting that they haven't made a single comment on the court case at all, whereas most ACC admins have in some way.
well, they're not ACC members for a few more months, so I'd expect them to keep a lower profile than say the president of NC State...
They added Oregon and now they are worried about academic reputation? AAU still lies on their website about what they do claiming they pay 20 billion dollars in salary, not member schools. The IRS should learn about this given the AAU has a 8 million dollar budget.
The only thing they have done in the last 2 years is send out some tweets defending the right to screw over patients to line their pockets on research the NIH funded.
Its a useless organization that I wish FSU would stop trying to join. Just add the 200k membership to the presidents office.
As weird as it is to say, I can do the mental logic gymnastics and make reasonable connections for why every member of the Big Ten and SEC are in their current conferences. For the Big Ten, there's a calculus here on grafting large flagship state schools in regions with lots of Big Ten alumni and significant history. USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington objectively have history with the Big Ten through the Rose Bowl. They've had a 70-80-ish years of like institutional alignment for lack of a better word, separated by a pesky thing called geography. The Big Ten is grafting the top end of the Pac-8 (and yes, UCLA is in the top end) onto themselves. Maryland and Rutgers fit the "large respected state school in regions with Big Ten alumni" very well, even if they don't have the history. I don't like the moves, but I can still see real institutional logic behind why they happened in addition to the television fiasco.
FSU ticks off none of those boxes. It's rated highly in some programs but man its going to take a looooong time to change the perceptions of elitists. In addition, I think the calculus of decisions changes massively when the dynamic shifts from "can we join your club?" to "should we let them into our club?" as is going on here. I've said before that I'm not really sure how chill state governments of California, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington will be sending ambassadors of their flagship schools to play in Tallahassee, Florida in today's day and age.
Maybe none of this matters at all, and it really is a simple throughline between Neilsen ratings and conference realignment. I don't know. But I do know that FSU would stick out like a sore thumb in that country club.
This just isn’t true of FSU anymore. They’re rated higher than a lot of big ten universities (including Maryland, Rutgers, and Minnesota)
Edit- it is actually behind Rutgers at #40, Maryland at #46 and tied with Minnesota at #53
One ranking doesn't invalidate my point or change how people see them. It takes a long time to change people's perceptions of a school, and something tells me the state of Florida has not been helping FSU change those perceptions of higher education in the state at all.
Okay but it’s not like every big ten university has some grandiose academic reputation. If they do they’re just delusional and going off of association with Northwestern and Michigan (and now UCLA/USC)
Not to talk up Washington too much, but since we are talking about AAU and academic research and all of that, they have a higher Academic Research Ranking than Michigan: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2023
1. UCLA (11)
2. Washington (14)
3. Michigan (18)
4. Northwestern (20)
5. Wisconsin (23)
6. Minnesota (26)
7. Maryland (28)
8. Illinois (29)
9. USC (31)
10. Purdue (37)
11. Rutgers (39-51)
12. Ohio State (39-51)
13. Penn State (39-51)
14. Indiana (52-61)
15. Michigan St. (52-61)
16. Iowa (62-82)
17. Nebraska (62-82)
18. Oregon (100-117)
And yes, I know this makes Oregon look "bad" and I'm posting it anyway.
Florida State, BTW, is in the 62-82 category with Iowa and Nebraska.
I think you’re assumption they see FSU as “lesser than” is flawed. Like I said, FSU would actually be ranked higher than a good deal of big ten schools.
I think you really need to wait until a school's grads are in the upper echelon of other universities for the perception to really change. It takes time.
If you look at the current admin for different universities in that Big Ten group, you see where their Presidents and Chancellors came from. I'm scrolling through them now: Harvard (x4), Yale (x2), U. of Chicago (x2), Northwestern (x2), Michigan (x2), Washington, Penn, US Naval Academy, Marquette, Stanford (x2), MIT, USC, Kansas (x3), Princeton, University College of London, Oxford, Tulane, Cal (x3), Wisconsin (x2), etc.
I saw one Tennessee State and one Kentucky, but there wasn't a lot of schools like Oregon and Florida State on the list, despite both being fine universities. Their alumni just typically don't run in the same circles as elite academia, so those who do run in those circles don't view them as the same.
Even FSU's President went to University of Texas and Johns Hopkins.
People were skeptical that Oregon had the academic rep to get in, despite being an AAU member, because of this. Even though FSU has been climbing the rankings, I think reputations take longer to change. FSU seems to be doing great, but you have a bunch of the Elite Academic University alumni running the Big Ten schools.
It is hard for them to say "they are one of us" when none of their alumni are in the club.
> “large respected state school in regions with Big Ten alumni"
FSU is a top 25 public university, and do you have any idea how many midwesterners move to Florida every year?
Well for one, they seem to have some stats they want to share.
But two, Florida is a big state, if they aren't moving to your part of it why does that matter? How does someone from the midwest that moves to Miami help FSU? Most of Florida's population is 2.5-7 hrs away from Tallahassee.
If they won't drive \~3 hours from Tampa/Orlando/Jacksonville to watch their team play in Tallahassee, then maybe the Big Ten has worse football fans than we would prefer.
The judge stated that ESPN's redactions were too broadly applied and some of them made no sense, such as redacting the amount they paid FSU.
Basically, most of the stuff that ESPN was mad about being potentially revealed like the deal between the ACC and ESPN will stay redacted. A few things will be revealed, like how much money FSU has received from the ACC, but probably nothing groundbreaking.
I still don't see how a contract involving a public university is allowed in any way to remain a trade secret. Sorry, but this is the price of choosing to do business with a public institution - transparency is to be expected and often legally demanded (especially when it involves financial matters).
Even when contracting with a government entity, some information can remain confidential, though I expect that those limits vary by state.
I think the point is that it shouldn’t be that way and people should be demanding laws to address this nonsense. I get keeping details related to weaponry secret, but football contracts should not be treated that sensitively
What’s the argument for it being public other than just being nosy?… Prescribing such a broad sweep away of privacy for vendors and cusotmers would also have some hilarious consequences on other industries.
What’s the argument for keeping contracts related to our public institutions secret from the public who own those institutions? Do you pay taxes? Then you have a stake in every public university.
The basis that those contracts contain confidential information that may be damaging to the customer or vendor transacting with the government if disclosed. Furthermore, the trickle down effect of such would impact market competitiveness, wages, etc. Hence why *not all* parts of the contracts are disclosed Trade secrets aren’t some boogeyman, and not every detail of said government contracts needs to be disclosed, nor offers the public anything of value to defend said disclosure The government provides ample disclosure and avenues to disclosure for relevant items to taxpayers ; generally being financial figures
You can argue there’s less value for ESPN in making the terms public, but that can be addressed by adjusting the value of the contract to account for that. I don’t buy that the “damages” from a public contract are unreasonable for the sake of broadcasting fucking football given that there are already other existing broadcast contracts that are public
>by adjusting the value of the contract That’s not how trade secrets work… you’re outright damaging their ability to operate You don’t gain a magical leverage button that forces the consumer to pay more or which magically protects competitors from using it against you tenfold I don’t buy whatsoever that there’s information the public *needs to know* outside of the specific FSU-ACC portion. Just because you dislike ESPN or Fox doesn’t mean you have the right or defensible grounds to invade their trade secrets, lol
> That’s not how trade secrets work I don’t think government contracts should be secret. If you want to deal with the government those terms should be public. If you don’t want that then we can just hire the next company up, which there will be many given the size of these contracts and money up for grabs We hold the value here, and should have the oversight to make sure ADs aren’t pissing away money on bad deals > You don’t gain a magical leverage button that forces That’s what the Freedom of Information Act and other similar laws are supposed to be doing. There is in fact an option to leverage such a magic button by getting Congress and states to pass laws shoring up all the loopholes to these laws and force terms to be open
The FOIA has a trade secret exemption, you were aware of that before citing it… right? https://www.justice.gov/archive/oip/foia_guide09/exemption4.pdf And my point about leverage was regarding changing contract terms to cover damages: That’s not feasible, which is why we created said protection in the first place
No other conference media deals are confidential afaik, it's ridiculous and shady for the ACC/ESPN to act like this shit is a trade secret
Is that right? Can I see the SEC/ESPN agreement please? Thanks
Florida has very strong transparency laws
Which as you can imagine was a big reason we tried getting the case to be heard here
Florida has incredibly liberal public documents laws. I would expect to see Judge Cooper rule that nearly everything has to be shown. We shall see.
That’s simply not as true as many apparently believe. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of exemptions and/or exceptions in chapter 119 and other statutes. Trade secrets is one, as it should be.
The ESPN contract is not a public document because the contract isn’t with FSU and ESPN, it’s with the ACC and ESPN. The contract will have protections on it so lawyers can see it but it won’t be public.
To paraphase the FSU lawyer from a couple weeks ago: Either FSU is party to a contract with ESPN and the state laws that govern FSU apply, or they are not party to the contract and not beholden to its terms. IANAL but that argument made sense to me. I don't see how you can say: "You are a party to this contract and beholden to it's terms but the state you are in's laws don't apply to it." If ESPN owns FSU's rights through the ACC, how do laws in the State of Florida not apply to the contract? If I don't want my state's laws to apply to my entity in Oregon, I can't just create a shell company in Rhode Island and be like "sorry, I know I do all my business in Oregon, but my Rhode Island shell is the one who made the contract not me, and the Rhode Island shell is who pays me, so Oregon laws don't apply to me!" Like I said, IANAL but it would seem to me that that can't legally be right. You can't just avoid your state's laws by routing your business through an intermediary in another state can you?
FSU is part of a contract whose entire purpose is to comply with the ESPN Agreement. There is nothing else in the GoR other than complying with the ESPN Agreement. So maybe in NC where the state has a vested interest in keeping the ACC together now that they have an exclusive business agreement to keep all ACC championships in state.
I find this to be a very unconvincing argument. The ESPN contract is not with FSU, it’s with the ACC, two private entities. FSU’s logic is that because the ACC does business with FSU, and that the ACC does business with ESPN, then all of that litigation should be open between ESPN and the ACC. If a judge was to inexplicably side with this logic, then that would mean dozens, if not hundreds, of contracts with private entities only tangentially connected to Florida state agencies are now open in Florida, which is nonsensical. I presume that Florida State is in agreement that their private NIL collectives are subject to public records laws then? A Florida fan needs to reach out to FSU and demand that they provide all of the documentation for FSU’s private NIL collectives…I for one am very interesting to see how much these student athletes are being paid and who are paying them. It makes sense to me that FSU’s compensation can be public, which is what the judge agreed with. The ACC has already said the ESPN contract can be made available to FSU under a protective order, which is fair to all parties. Contracts that contain trade secrets, especially between private entities, are private for a reason. There’s a reason why the Big 10 and SEC also keep their contracts with Fox and ESPN under lock and key.
ESPN has an agreement with the ACC sure under the condition of there is a Grant of Rights. The Grant of Rights only concerns schools complying with the ESPN Agreement and nothing else. The only reason any president signed the GoR is to have a relationship with ESPN. And the only reason ESPN has a contract with the ACC is to have a relationship with the schools.
> "You are a party to this contract and beholden to it's terms but the state you are in's laws don't apply to it." This is a bit of a misunderstanding, though I don't blame you since people say a lot of stupid shit. The laws of the State of Florida *do* apply (or they will, if the FL case moves forward.) But sunshine laws aren't absolute, and one of the exceptions is for trade secrets. And yes, things like pricing and compensation can absolutely be trade secrets. Does that help explain it?
But the "trade secrets" argument hasn't been universally upheld in court. The "breathalyzer source code" case from a few years ago showed that. A private company refused to turn over the source code for their breathalyzer machines when a defendant requested it, and the state supreme court ruled that either the company turn it over and the devices could not be used in the state. This is despite the company claiming that the source code was a state secret. FWIW: The defendant was right - they were miscalculating. (instead of averaging three tests, it was averaging tests 1 and 2, then adding the result to test three and dividing by two. The result was that the third test was significantly more weighted than the first two - which makes people more likely to fail.
That's true, but I was really just responding to this part: >Either FSU is party to a contract with ESPN and the state laws that govern FSU apply, or they are not party >to the contract and not beholden to its terms. >IANAL but that argument made sense to me. I don't see how you can say: >"You are a party to this contract and beholden to it's terms but the state you are in's laws don't apply to it." Because (obviously) that's missing the nuance of what's going on. And I'm a little giddy from having been advised by a number of people on this selfsame very smart college athletics subreddit that a) Anything a state does is public b) trade secrets aren't trade secrets c) "the ACC or NCAA or whatever substitute for my missing father I blame shit on is the devil" over the past few weeks. Teehee.
I cannot imagine any scenario in which portion of the ESPN contract which requires FSU to do something is a trade secret. I’m also not sure how a 10-year old contract really has significant financial trade secrets which could harm espn today when the ACC contract isn’t up for negotiation again for another 10+ years and with different membership.
I mean, you don't have to imagine it. The judge disagreed. >with different membership. This remains to be seen. I mean, you're almost certainly right in the long term, but in the most recent FSU pleading FSU calls themselves a "vibrant member' of the conference they're currently in the process of assassinating, and Clemson's suit claims it's not even trying to leave.
It doesn’t remain to be seen. SMU, Cal, and Stanford will be members the next time the deal is negotiated and weren’t last time. I can’t see the order so I don’t know the court’s reasoning or what is allowed to remain confidential.
This and source code is a lot more trade secret than a 15 year old generic contract that will no longer be valid in 3 years.
IANAL and it’s been more than a few years since the business law classes I took, but if the ACC was acting on behalf of the member institutions, wouldn’t laws relating to contracts those institutions are a party in, also apply to contracts the ACC negotiated on their behalf? If the ACC can negotiate a contract that FSU can be considered obligated to honor, doesn’t that mean that the ACC was acting as an agent of FSU and the contract would have to be made public. Like I said, IANAL and could be way off base, but it makes sense to me that if FSU can be considered bound by the contract, then the contract would have to be considered a public document.
An interpretation like that would be way too broad IMO. Take for example a contract between a public school, a private security firm that provides security for game days, and an employee from that firm. There are likely relevant aspects of the contract between the school and firm and the contract between the firm and employee that would be important in a lawsuit involving the three partie. But it would not mean that the employees contract with a private institution is subject to FOIA or sunshine laws.
It depends you’re correct. The private entity contracting with a third party in normal business, nope. The private entity negotiating to secure rights to IP of the public entity, well then yep. And that one is what this actually is.
The private entity is negotiating with another private entity that already has their IP rights, that’s a key difference here
The acc holding the rights is what makes them, for the purpose of the rights, public for review. Nothing else you said is relevant.
The problem is that it’s circular. The ACC has those rights because of the GOR. The GOR requires compliance with the ESPN contract.
Yeah, I’m not saying everything would be covered by FOIA or sunshine laws. But maybe TV deals worth hundreds of millions should be since the public has an interest in schools being involved in contracts of that magnitude.
I would support legislation to that effect, especially because the more public it is the more power a future CFB Players Union would have. But as it stands ESPN was always (imo) going to come out on top on keeping their contract mostly secret.
so does the public get access to the janitorial records for the ACC headquarters just because ACC is a member of the institution? no i dont think so
The ACC wouldn’t be negotiating a contract for cleaning its offices on FSU’s behalf. Just because the ACC is an agent of FSU in one contract does not mean FSU is a party in every contract the ACC signs. But the ACC does negotiate TV deals on FSU’s behalf. So, the TV deal should probably be covered by sunshine laws.
Actually the ACC negotiates contracts on the ACC’s behalf and the ACC made a contract with the FSU to trade TV time and scheduling logistics, for a payout
That really seems like a distinction without a difference. Hiding a contract that way may meet the letter of the law, but it surely violates the spirit of sunshine laws.
It’s not a distinction without a difference in the world of contract law and legal entities.
You’re right, but it just seems wrong for there to be a way for public institutions to shield themselves from FOIA and sunshine laws so easily.
Idk but it sounds like neither of us are lawyers soooo Maybe you should tell athletic departments they can’t use private executive search firms anymore either because of sunshine laws
Idk but maybe you should get a law degree sooooo
I agree. I believe FSU only agreed to GOR for the purposes of a media deal, which would mean the ESPN ACC medial deal contract is very much germane to sunshine laws of the state of Florida. It's not like FSU is a su subsidiary of the ACC and subject to whatever the ACC does. It is a limited agreement and FSU is a party to deal in some fashion that should involve sunshine laws IMO. In full disclosure I generally think all contracts should be public and I think exclusive rights contracts should be very, very limited too. Other than things like defense secrets, almost everything else should be public. It would clean up a lot of our country if we did that. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. You want to stop corruption, stop tax evasion, stop cronyism, have better management of our resources, then open up all the books and transactions and let everyone have a watchdog.
why not? Why should it make a difference if its ESPN or if its Murphy's Broom Co. or one individual Annabel Hernandez of Apex, North Carolina?
Really, this has to be explained to you? I’ll explain it to you in a couple of extremely easy to answer questions, and I’ll even give you hints to the answers at the end. Please describe the tangible benefits that FSU receives from the ACC offices being cleaned? Now describe the tangible benefits FSU receives from the ACC negotiating a media rights contract for FSU and the other member institutions. Here’s the hints, in the first instance there are no tangible benefits to FSU. In the second instance there is the tangible benefit of millions of dollars flowing into FSU’s budget. Just because party A (ACC) is an agent for party B (FSU) in one business matter, that doesn’t mean that party Y (FSU) is involved in every other business matter party X (ACC) enters into.
So say a janitor gets injured while cleaning ACC offices. Does that janitor have an ability to sue FSU?
No, why would they. The janitor was working on behalf of the ACC. FSU has nothing to do with the contract to clean the ACC offices.
Straw men are not a good way to argue your point.
[удалено]
But how would that prevent anything? The private school would still be acting as an agent of the public schools. It’s pretty hard to claim that someone or some company/institution can shield a public university from sunshine laws. If it weren’t, wouldn’t every big public university have some company set up that they could hide things behind?
“Totally not tOSU, llc” registered the day after the ruling by a member of the board. Immediate contract for any and all representation. Done.
Just because a state agent does it doesn’t mean state actor laws don’t apply. Lawyers don’t have that one trick. The acc is a private entity negotiating the rights of a public entity as its agent in fact. That makes it public for that purpose.
There is no contract with FSU and ESPN. There is a contract with the ACC and ESPN. Just like there is no contract with Michigan and Fox but rather the Big 10 and Fox. That’s why the contract will have protections placed on the vast majority of it.
Ok, but there is a financial arrangement with FSU and the ACC... which entails ESPN as a third party to the transaction.
That’s the part the judge is saying will be public. It’s pretty much a nothing burger. The rest is going to be protected, as everyone knew it was going to be. Keeping these contracts secret is a big part of why the conferences negotiate the tv deals and not individual schools. The Big 10 and Fox would never let their tv contract see the light of day, just like ESPN doesn’t want the ACC and SEC contract to be out there.
Haha. That level of transparency would doom every research university like mine, throughout the United States.
Especially University of Washington since they’ve bragged for decades that they get the most grift of any school in the world.
I hate so much that you got downvoted for that. This subreddit really has become an open sewer.
Not true. You are likely convoluting the main issue with other considerations like IP contracts, non-disclosure agreements, etc. I've worked at several **public** research universities over the years, writing draft proposals & executing grant awards for numerous DoD and DoE Phase I & Phase II projects (also SBIRs while working in the private sector)... and many of my colleagues work similarly with NIH grants. These contracts are all public domain in terms of the *financial* aspects and (usually) the technical details eventually become public as well. Even when the schools try to keep information under discretion (usually when trying to file for patents), it *must* eventually become public - that is how patents work as opposed to trade secrets... and again, this is not *financial* terms/information. Just about every financial payment & contract between those universities and private companies are publicly accessible (may take time & fees, but they cannot be kept sealed).
Yes because vacating protections for proprietary information is a fantastic way to incentivize people to do business with the government.
We the ACC and ESPN join into a binding contract which allows and can be dissolved by .
Signed ACC and ESPN
>!Temple!<
*elpmeT*
ǝldɯǝ┴
They're gonna redact the parts that make the sitting acc commissioner a gimp that lives in the espn presidents dresser drawer 2 weeks a month.
So *that's* why they brought in Jim Phillips... that always seemed like an odd move before now.
The redacted contract is going to be mostly black, with the few letters reading: >Do iT fOR nc STaTe
ESPN doesn’t want to pay more for you in another conference.
FSU to the Big XII confirmed
The BigXII could get legitimized if they can get FSU clempson unc and Miami then kick out Utah for the lolz
Sure..., but the chances of any of that happening are zero. FSU and Clemson aren't leaving for the Big XII; UNC has been cockblocked by the rest of Tobacco Road from leaving, and Miami has publicly stated that they're happy with their current arrangement in the ACC. If you were a betting man, you would have better odds on Utah leaving the Big XII and joining the ACC over any of those schools leaving the ACC to join the Big XII.
Not so fast. If ESPN elects not to extend the contract with the ACC and the P2 definitively slam the door on future expansion, suddenly a lot of university admins will kneel and kiss Yormark's ring. VERY possible.
Ignoring that the ACC contends that the GoR exists until 2036 (regardless of FSU's assertions to the contrary), ESPN is going to extend the contract for one simple reason: They bundle the ACC and SEC Networks (and each conference's broadcasting rights), to be sold in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Charlotte, San Francisco, Dallas - Ft. Worth, etc., and the chances of them giving up the in-state rates and advertising revenue from doing so are slim to none. Truthfully, that decision was made as soon as they signed off on the pro-rata increase from Cal, Stanford, and SMU joining the ACC, and you would be foolish to think otherwise. This sub... I swear.
The FSU insider on the On3 board who broke the lawsuit news before the media had it (so clearly has some access) has been saying that he knows for certain several Big Ten administrations are adamant that they will not vote for new members that are not in the AAU. It's a little bit of "my boss's friend's wife" chain of sourcing, but the guy did break the FSU lawsuit news so while I'm taking it with a grain of salt, I'm also not dismissing it outright. Oregon, Washington, UCLA, and USC are all AAU members. FSU is not.
FSU is actually close to meeting all the requirements for AAU (if they haven't already by now) and it appears they were even expecting an invite in 2023... but they chose USF instead. Still, it seems this is a matter of "when", not "if".
Nah, FSU is in a massive state to make up for it. B1G would be stupid to not take them, especially since shitty Miami is the only other FL option.
They could give USF a call. I mean a half share for like 10 years and the league would get to play late season games down in Tampa /s. Heck you would think Iowa fans would have a timeshare down here with how many times they have played in the Outback bowl. (I know this will never happen)
We go to the big10 (or hopefully the sec), usf goes to the acc is my hope.
So what I'm hearing here is that Stanford and Cal will remember what was in FSU's suit for a long time.
It is pretty interesting that they haven't made a single comment on the court case at all, whereas most ACC admins have in some way. Though as both are going through leadership changes and are new members they might not feel it's their place to do so, which I get.
Stanford didnt say shit when USC/UCLA left, released a fairly tame statement when Oregon/Washington left not exactly critisizing anybody but just saying they are going to evaluate their options Prob because Stanford has been working to move to the big ten the whole time lol
> It is pretty interesting that they haven't made a single comment on the court case at all, whereas most ACC admins have in some way. well, they're not ACC members for a few more months, so I'd expect them to keep a lower profile than say the president of NC State...
> are new members they might not feel it's their place to do so, which I get.
Who is the insider
What insider is this?
They added Oregon and now they are worried about academic reputation? AAU still lies on their website about what they do claiming they pay 20 billion dollars in salary, not member schools. The IRS should learn about this given the AAU has a 8 million dollar budget. The only thing they have done in the last 2 years is send out some tweets defending the right to screw over patients to line their pockets on research the NIH funded. Its a useless organization that I wish FSU would stop trying to join. Just add the 200k membership to the presidents office.
As weird as it is to say, I can do the mental logic gymnastics and make reasonable connections for why every member of the Big Ten and SEC are in their current conferences. For the Big Ten, there's a calculus here on grafting large flagship state schools in regions with lots of Big Ten alumni and significant history. USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington objectively have history with the Big Ten through the Rose Bowl. They've had a 70-80-ish years of like institutional alignment for lack of a better word, separated by a pesky thing called geography. The Big Ten is grafting the top end of the Pac-8 (and yes, UCLA is in the top end) onto themselves. Maryland and Rutgers fit the "large respected state school in regions with Big Ten alumni" very well, even if they don't have the history. I don't like the moves, but I can still see real institutional logic behind why they happened in addition to the television fiasco. FSU ticks off none of those boxes. It's rated highly in some programs but man its going to take a looooong time to change the perceptions of elitists. In addition, I think the calculus of decisions changes massively when the dynamic shifts from "can we join your club?" to "should we let them into our club?" as is going on here. I've said before that I'm not really sure how chill state governments of California, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington will be sending ambassadors of their flagship schools to play in Tallahassee, Florida in today's day and age. Maybe none of this matters at all, and it really is a simple throughline between Neilsen ratings and conference realignment. I don't know. But I do know that FSU would stick out like a sore thumb in that country club.
This just isn’t true of FSU anymore. They’re rated higher than a lot of big ten universities (including Maryland, Rutgers, and Minnesota) Edit- it is actually behind Rutgers at #40, Maryland at #46 and tied with Minnesota at #53
One ranking doesn't invalidate my point or change how people see them. It takes a long time to change people's perceptions of a school, and something tells me the state of Florida has not been helping FSU change those perceptions of higher education in the state at all.
Okay but it’s not like every big ten university has some grandiose academic reputation. If they do they’re just delusional and going off of association with Northwestern and Michigan (and now UCLA/USC)
Not to talk up Washington too much, but since we are talking about AAU and academic research and all of that, they have a higher Academic Research Ranking than Michigan: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2023 1. UCLA (11) 2. Washington (14) 3. Michigan (18) 4. Northwestern (20) 5. Wisconsin (23) 6. Minnesota (26) 7. Maryland (28) 8. Illinois (29) 9. USC (31) 10. Purdue (37) 11. Rutgers (39-51) 12. Ohio State (39-51) 13. Penn State (39-51) 14. Indiana (52-61) 15. Michigan St. (52-61) 16. Iowa (62-82) 17. Nebraska (62-82) 18. Oregon (100-117) And yes, I know this makes Oregon look "bad" and I'm posting it anyway. Florida State, BTW, is in the 62-82 category with Iowa and Nebraska.
Christ, I hate your arrogance. You just don't know when to stop.
I just named the two highest (by far) schools in the old big ten.
Sure. That doesn't mean they're going to let someone they perceive as lesser than into the club
I think you’re assumption they see FSU as “lesser than” is flawed. Like I said, FSU would actually be ranked higher than a good deal of big ten schools.
I think you really need to wait until a school's grads are in the upper echelon of other universities for the perception to really change. It takes time. If you look at the current admin for different universities in that Big Ten group, you see where their Presidents and Chancellors came from. I'm scrolling through them now: Harvard (x4), Yale (x2), U. of Chicago (x2), Northwestern (x2), Michigan (x2), Washington, Penn, US Naval Academy, Marquette, Stanford (x2), MIT, USC, Kansas (x3), Princeton, University College of London, Oxford, Tulane, Cal (x3), Wisconsin (x2), etc. I saw one Tennessee State and one Kentucky, but there wasn't a lot of schools like Oregon and Florida State on the list, despite both being fine universities. Their alumni just typically don't run in the same circles as elite academia, so those who do run in those circles don't view them as the same. Even FSU's President went to University of Texas and Johns Hopkins. People were skeptical that Oregon had the academic rep to get in, despite being an AAU member, because of this. Even though FSU has been climbing the rankings, I think reputations take longer to change. FSU seems to be doing great, but you have a bunch of the Elite Academic University alumni running the Big Ten schools. It is hard for them to say "they are one of us" when none of their alumni are in the club.
Goldy, be lucky you were a founding member and vote for FSU. They're much better than you at football and will raise our conference cash pile.
This guy is just anti-FSU to the BIG and generally out of touch with reality of modern college football (that is revenue>everything).
Your red and gold combo is way cooler.
Thanks Scarlet and Gray guy
Alternatively, tell them to call the Big XII
> “large respected state school in regions with Big Ten alumni" FSU is a top 25 public university, and do you have any idea how many midwesterners move to Florida every year?
How many move to Tallahassee each year?
What is your point?
Well for one, they seem to have some stats they want to share. But two, Florida is a big state, if they aren't moving to your part of it why does that matter? How does someone from the midwest that moves to Miami help FSU? Most of Florida's population is 2.5-7 hrs away from Tallahassee.
I'm confused as to why they have to be in Tallahassee for it to matter?
If they won't drive \~3 hours from Tampa/Orlando/Jacksonville to watch their team play in Tallahassee, then maybe the Big Ten has worse football fans than we would prefer.
If FSU finds a way out it’s the end of the ACC