TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida State called its Special Board of Trustees to meet Friday morning.

While no official reason was given for the meeting, sources indicated to ESPN that the board is expected to discuss the long-term future of athletics.

The meeting, announced Thursday, comes nearly three weeks after the Seminoles became the first undefeated Power 5 champions to be left out of the College Football Playoff, a decision that angered university officials, its board of governors and the athletic department after a year spent articulating Expressed their dissatisfaction with the ACC. For a variety of reasons – including a widening revenue gap with other conferences, revenue distribution and its place in the collegiate landscape.

Any ACC school that wants to leave the conference would have to appeal the granting of rights. Florida State and all other ACC members have signed a rights grant with the league that runs through 2036, the term of its television contract with ESPN, which gives the league control of its media rights — including TV revenue and broadcast of home games in all sports. . Additionally, any school wanting to leave the ACC would have to pay an exit fee that would be three times the league’s operating budget, or roughly $120 million.

No one legally objected to the granting of rights. ACC officials have previously described the grant of rights as “draconian” and strongly believe in the strength of the document. But the state of Florida has reviewed its legal counsel, who is based in the association’s office in Charlotte, North Carolina.

If Florida State decides to appeal the granting of rights, it will not leave the league immediately, as the process will take some time. There is also a significant risk that the grant of rights will be challenged. In 2022, one ACC athletic director told ESPN: “It’s going to be a hell of a court battle, I’ll tell you that.”

Nearly every ACC school has considered granting rights since conference realignment began back in the summer of 2021, when the SEC added Texas and Oklahoma State. The following summer, the Big Ten added USC and UCLA. The moves sent shock waves through college football, but they also gave a dose of reality to the ACC and, in particular, the league’s schools worried about falling further behind in revenue and importance.

Florida State first began ringing alarm bells about its dissatisfaction with the ACC in February, when athletic director Michael Alford told his board of trustees that the school was poised to fall behind SEC and Big Ten schools by $30 million annually when their new television contracts began. .

In May, it was revealed that seven ACC schools — Florida State, Clemson, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech and NC State — had held talks among themselves about granting rights and securing a path forward.

Although the ACC ultimately agreed to change the revenue distribution model — largely because the state of Florida pushed for it — an August Board of Trustees meeting in Tallahassee highlighted just how unhappy Florida State had become with Another wave of reorganization shifted affiliations once again.

University President Richard McCullough explained that the school would consider “very seriously” leaving the league. Chairman Peter Collins made clear that the grant of rights “will not be the document that prevents us from taking action”, as board member after board member pushed the school to come up with a business plan for its long-term future. In a separate interview with ESPN in August, McCullough said he was “not optimistic that we’ll be able to survive. At some point, we’re going to have to do something.”

A few weeks after that board meeting, the ACC added Stanford, California and SMU in response to the Big Ten adding Oregon and Washington, and the Big 12 also expanded. Florida State, Clemson, and North Carolina all voted against expansion. The move was seen as a way to secure the league’s long-term future in the event that the schools lost to other conferences.

Watching Florida State become the first undefeated Power 5 team to be eliminated from the College Football Playoff on Dec. 3 only accelerated the momentum toward charting its path forward. The anger and emotion led to questions about the ACC as a whole, and whether being an ACC school was what ultimately kept them away. The fact that the ACC’s athletic director – Beau Corrigan – served as chairman of the committee exacerbated the situation.

Several school officials expressed their dissatisfaction with the league and ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips for not being publicly available to push Florida State’s case after quarterback Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending injury.

These concerns were only underscored when Bill Hancock, executive director of the CFP, wrote in a letter to Senator Rick Scott about the Florida State snub that the Seminoles did not have a strong enough schedule, calling the ACC a “so-called Power 5 conference.” ” While Hancock later clarified that statement, Florida State officials viewed the statement as a slap in the face of the ACC.

But by then, talks were already heating up about its long-term future. Now it’s up to the council to decide its next step forward.