Doug Rohan Breaks Down the Latest News in the ACC vs. FSU Lawsuits

The Big Mountain provides you with a CAN’T MISS EPISODE as they sit down with Doug Rohan, PC for a second discussion on the FSU vs ACC Lawsuits.
Discussions were focused on Count 1 regarding the question about media rights after a school leaves the ACC, the ongoing dilemma around Sovereign Immunity in NC and FL, the avenues that this could get to the Federal level, and a better understanding the action brought by AG Moody – Writ of Mandamus.
We thank Doug for spending so much time with us and coming BACK to The Big Mountain!
Be sure to follow Doug on X as he provides frequent updates on the FSU/ACC lawsuits and many other CFB matters! @RohanLawPC

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Doug Rohan returns to the big mountain to talk FSU versus the ACC the ACC lawsuits are always in the news so we’re back on the big mountain with a very special guest hey good to have you here on the mountain again I am JY and this is my good friend Steve and you can all see we have Doug Rohan back on the channel again really happy to have him on we have some questions we want to talk to him about especi especially regarding this a second mended complaint and I do have a question about AG Moody that we’re going to get to at the end I’m confused about what she’s doing and Doug is gonna send me straight so Doug welcome to the show again really glad you could uh be on with us thank you guys for having me back it’s always a pleasure really enjoyed your shows yeah and Doug again we we appreciate you I know you’re a busy guy uh so for for anybody who’s who’s watching our show uh you know if you are following the the ACC loss suits and you’re interested in the fate of Florida State whether they’re going to be in the ACC in the Big 10 how much it’s going to cost you got to be following uh is it’s it’s Rohan law uh on Twitter PC yep Rohan Law PC yeah you you gotta be following him uh and then obviously if you’re in the the in Atlanta area and you have uh and you need a lawyer uh go go to Doug for sure well let’s let’s jump in if you’re ready to to rock and roll here we got we got some beef we’re gonna do some beefy questions at least we think they’re beefy I don’t know what doug does but anyway um so the first I to talk about is this new count one that they have um in in their amended complaint and we talked about we did a preview or or summary uh episode on this new filing that they did in Leon County and really that that real first paragraph after the first paragraph Just hey we’re the plaintiffs and defendants blah blah blah but the first real introductory paragraph they went right at it they said the two main topics this being one of them um and count one says the grant of rights never transferred the media rights for fsu’s home games after FSU leaves the ACC so that’s why I want to start with you here Doug um my question is and and my understanding I think is doesn’t the ACC have the rights to these games for the duration of the grant of rights to broadcast them wherever they want however they want or potentially I guess not broadcast them as long as consideration being given as long as FSU is being paid under that agreement um I know that’s that’s probably uh kind of out there to hear me say well they don’t have to broadcast these games so I am taking a a big jump here but I’m doing that just so I can understand how does this work with the grant of rights because to me they’re saying yes we’re giving you our rights our media rights and you can make them on ESPN or wherever you want as long as we’re getting the money the correct consideration for them so where am I going wrong here well you’re going wrong with believing what we were told for the last 10 years okay in the headlines of stories and the headlines of stories say this is the grant of rights the grant of rights is irrevocable and Florida state is granting all of its rights to the ACC the problem is that ignores General ideas of punctuation and words and their meanings and that’s why we have this entire industry dedicated to contract law and interpreting contracts the grant of rights sets out in paragraph one that each member of the institution hereby irrevocably admittedly that’s irrevocable and exclusively solely for this is the only purpose for Grants the conference here the ACC during the term as defined below so everything that you have said is correct up to that point All rights are granted irrevocably to the conference for the ter is defined below but what is All rights All rights are the rights necessary for the conference to perform the contractual obligations of the conference expressly set forth in the ESPN agreement that’s where the comma comes in the rest says regardless of whether the member institution remains and that’s where the idea that this is for the term of the agreement but the only rights The Limited rights that are given up are those rights necessary for the conference to perform the contractual obligations as set forth by ESPN so there’s two issues there that are new in this new count one the first of which is what does the ESPN agreement say we don’t know that’s what Clemson’s about to get that’s what we’ve been told about but Clemson attorneys and Florida State Attorneys have seen the agreement and in their allegations which it is Florida State’s interpret but anytime you put allegations in these counts in front of the court what you’re saying is this is what we think we can prove and what they’re saying they think they can prove is that ESPN agreement only allows ESPN to broadcast ACC Member games it doesn’t say FSU games it doesn’t list the 15 members of the conference that are included it just says ACC members well when a member announces its departure from the league it is no longer a member of that conference so that’s where they’re getting this language from makes complete sense and you were very kind to me because you could have just said because you’re drinking the blue ACC Kool-Aid JY that’s why you think the way you think but that makes total sense and I I want to uh I have a follow-up question that I think you’ve somewhat already answered there should be some yeah um I would be concerned if you didn’t had followup questions today okay but but you said something that that I had said on a previous episode and I still think there’s people’s conf there’s people that are confused that no one has seen the ESPN media rights agreement and I made a comment several weeks ago where I said no they’ve seen it they just don’t have a copy of it and we had a few commenters be like are you sure that they’ve seen that how do you know that they’ve seen I’m like they they’ve told everybody you can fly or drive to the ACC headquarters and you got to go to the secret secret spot with the cameras and the node you know or you can take notes but you can take notes but you can’t take pictures of it and everybody’s watching you and all that kind of stuff so I mean that’s your understanding correct like they’ve always had access to the document they just don’t have physical access to the document within their universities is that basically the correct understanding I was present for the first mecklinburg hearing and that’s what the attorneys for both the ACC and Florida State were expressing that the documents the tracked plural were available and were made available for inspection but to your point they were observed while they were doing it they couldn’t take pictures they couldn’t take written notes they just had the opportunity to read it and that’s where you know some people are talking about how how is it this clear and this obvious look it’s taken me four months to get to this point I was on the idea of it being SK skeptical from the beginning but in contract law when you read a sentence and you reread a sentence and you read a sentence for a third time and then you start thinking about it from a different perspective that’s when you see the different interpretations and yes they are different interpretations of the same words but you focus on different aspects so when you heard irrevocable when you heard for the term is outlined below that’s what we initially were focusing on without realizing what intended to do and let me be very clear the intention of the ACC was absolutely to have all the right from the beginning for the duration but the problem was they copied somebody else’s homework they got lazy they got sloppy they changed the one sentence that could have done what they wanted to do and that was to explain that this agreement unlike the Big 12 granted rights only applies to ESPN the other big thing they left out as we’ve talked about before is is it the choice of law is that the correct one or choice of venue like what that would have helped us in this situation right now too but that wasn’t a question we were going to talk about but seems like they they’ve left out a couple really important pieces to these documents but I want to get to my followup so if what we know and what you’ve kind of said about the the media rights agreement is true and that the ACC um what we’ve heard is they have to have 15 members in order to have a a full conference for their media rights agreements and they don’t to our knowledge name the universities of who they need to be but they just have have to have a minimum number of universities to me if that’s if that’s the case then with the additions of the three new schools that they’re adding Cal Stanford and SMU a withdrawal of in this case FSU and maybe even Clemson um it’s almost irrelevant because they’re meeting the threshold that we know of within the ESPN agreement is that a step too far or am I missing something there as well no you’ve hit the nail on the head and and that’s part of what’s making this such a fun exercise this is going to be on bar exams and final exams in law school for years to come because you have what you’re talking about the composition Clause the composition of the ACC must be at least 15 members so you bring in three other members lorida State and Clemson are making the argument then if we leave what are we talking about liquidated damages if we leave the conference we’re not hindering the ACC from continuing their ESPN agreement they are still having the 15 members so we’re not in trouble now it’s the two biggest schools it’s the two highest branded names within the ACC so it’s disingenuous to say there’s no economic impact but we’re not ruining the party we’re not peeing in the cornflakes we’re not making it such that ESPN suddenly blows up the entire deal now they might on this lookin provision we’ll talk about that in a moment also right but as far as the composition claes there is no damage to your point okay all right yeah and and that’s that’s huge I mean the composition of course is Meaningful um but if they’re trying to make sure they’re they’re um going to be showing a certain number of games seven games a week as an example um does the do the teams technically matter or is it just that hey we know we’re giving you seven games that you’re going to be broadcasting every week for the you know the duration of the college football season um the value could change because of the composition but it certainly doesn’t you know blow up the agreement I wouldn’t think so and let me add to this point also as a secondary issue this is part of the reason why Clemson and ESPN feel comfortable undercutting the acc’s argument because if the concern was how many members rights you can broadcast then under the acc’s interpretation if Florida State and Clemson left they would still have their rights to broadcast yes so if that were the case why do you need to add three more new members why do you need to worry about the composition CLA the day that Grant of Rights was signed there were 15 members until 2036 ACC according to your logic you still have 15 members regardless of what those institutions do and that the courts don’t like language that doesn’t make sense well that makes sense so I’m gonna turn it over to Steve he’s gonna talk you maybe you have some follow-ups but I know you got to talk about your favorite item in the entire situation we have on going here so Doug before I get to my questions uh I do I have a follow up on that so if we’re talking about the compos comp the composition of the conference and and if 15 is the number um didn’t the didn’t the ACCC didn’t the other schools that are that are suing Florida State and now Clemson didn’t they they shoot their shoot themselves in the foot by adding these schools they’re basically give they you know if if that’s the standard if the contractual obligation is to have 15 schools didn’t they kind of sew their own seeds of Destruction there by adding potentially by adding those three schools look my mom always taught me never to interpret malice where incompetence is as efficient explanation and that’s effectively what is happening here is they thought the ACC thought they were doing a what they thought they were doing was overcoming the risk of seven members blowing up the conference all together that was their big concern we had the The Magnificent Seven as Pete THL had uh mentioned last year at the ACC conference and there legitimately was a perspective from Seven members who at least were talking about this that the best bet was just to dissolve the ACC so they scrambled to find any Warm Bodies don’t get it wrong these are not three Premier eyeball drawing programs that the ACC coveted to add they might covet Yukon they might covet USF they just saw three Warm Bodies available they needed to get that number high enough that the seven Magnificent Seven were imp and couldn’t do what they wanted to do but to your point in doing that they undid one of the uh features they had in their agreement to prevent Lord of state and Clemson from escaping well my Grandma had a saying uh don’t cut off your nose despite your face and it seems like this is what they might have done um okay so um which to to me is just shocking if that’s if if that is the final outcome that basically you know that that they own their grant of rights only so far as to is to maintain 15 teams to fulfill their obligation if that’s what lets Florida State and Clemson and Clemson and someone else out the door almost gotot free uh it’s just unbelievable level of incompetence that you know and and we can start making our comparisons to the pack so far we’ve said hey the ACC was a lot smarter than the pack but maybe they weren’t all along so um okay so moving forward you know I I have this the topic that I’ve been on since the very beginning JY will tell you uh very beginning of this case is the sovereign immunity question okay uh I’m a big uh uh I won’t say fan but I’m very interested in just uh um you know constitutional issues uh different matters between different states and things so um before we get that far I’m just going to say here I want to ask you pretty simple question so do you believe that the Florida State Board of Trustees is in fact a sovereign entity in the State of Florida and if so is Florida State correct in saying that the Florida State Board of Trustees would have to expressly wave sovereign immunity and and and I emphasize expressly because it seems like there’s a big difference there judge Cooper he talked about Express uh uh Express rep versus imped uh and and judge bledo down in uh mecklinburg County North Carolina he kind of just glazed over that and said hey they’re operating here they they you know that is an implied waiver of their sovereign immunity um I mean that’s obviously kind of painting that in simple strokes but in your opinion uh does Florida State have a case here do do you know can they claim that the Board of Trustees is its own Sovereign entity in the State of Florida and would have to expressly wave that sovereign immunity Steve you’ve written probably one of the best state con law final exam questions that any FSU or Florida grad is going to be looking at again for the next two years but you you phrased it ideally and it really was perfectly stated the Board of Trustees is the governing body for the State University member the State University member is a member institution of the larger State University system which is a sovereign because it is acting as a a offshoot of the State of Florida so in my interpretation the Board of Trustees is a sovereign within the meaning of the Florida sovereign immunity statute the statute is what says any waiver of sovereign immunity must be statute must be expressly stated and I would have to wonder where specifically that expression would have to be stated um I don’t believe every Board of trustee approved contract necessarily has to that there just needs to be something in the charter in the grant of right University Charter that says we expressly wave our sovereign immunity within the State of Florida or when it comes to litigation the problem we have here is the interpretation between express and implied and the jurisdiction North Carolina versus Florida bledo is alleging that an implied waiver by acting in concert with the subject as laid out in the Troy University case is sufficient to create an implied waiver of North Carolina uh to to the jurisdiction of North Carolina the Florida State Board of Trustees and attorneys are arguing there is an Express waiver of Florida sovereign immunity in Florida but only in Florida so that’s where and to get to to peek ahead to your follow-up question I don’t know if this is going to the Supreme Court or not but we have a conflict and one of the parties is a sovereign state and if you look at what the basis is for any um Supreme Court action article 3 section two Clause two in all cases affecting ambassadors no ambassadors here other public ministers and Council that doesn’t apply and those in which a state shall be a party not two states but where a state shall be a party the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction so I go back to what I said on your last show and what I’ve said a couple times on Twitter this you know whether or not it is a Supreme Court case or not I don’t know it would seem there is a a potential an Avenue but you also have to compare that to the 150 Supreme Court rits that are granted in contrast to the 7,000 applications for rits where 6,850 are denied right so could there be a writ to the Supreme Court certainly possible is it going to be granted very unlikely the Supreme Court would have to agree that this is such an important issue that may come up again in the future that we have to take a look at it and I don’t know that we rise to that level yeah okay so I have a I have a couple follow-ups there Doug okay let’s go unpack it all right so here so farmer versus Troy is the is the case that uh was cited in judge bledo Court uh as the the precedent there where uh I think it was Troy University from the state of Alabama um they were they’re a state school in they’re a public school in the state of Alabama they came into North Carolina and they established some kind of a a business they established a whether it was fundraising or recruiting um to get students they established some kind of business um I I just want your opinion on this to me that doesn’t really seem like a very good uh uh example or precedent because seems very different from what Florida state is doing in participating in the ACC they didn’t come in they didn’t get a business license they didn’t set up a storefront they’re not soliciting for as far as I know they’re not soliciting for donations or set up a recruiting uh you know an office to get to you know a satellite campus of Florida State at you know at at at uh Wake Forest or anything like that um so what’s your opinion on that as far as that being the precedent case that farmer versus Troy I was of all the things that judge bledo said I was most shocked and disappointed in this particular point and that is because as you described as you stated Troy as a public University of Alabama came into North Carolina opened an office to me the most important part was they actually registered with the secretary of state which means they have a registered agent one of the principal jobs of a registered agent is to receive lawsuits summons for lawsuits so they open an office as you said but within that office was somebody whose job was to receive lawsuits They Knew by opening and going through this process they were opening themselves to being sued in North Carolina there’s an acknowledgement there judge bledo says I’m going to interpret Troy case to say it’s not a requirement that you open an office and get a registered agent that’s just an example of Troy University doing business so on a scale from one to 10 F university did a nine in terms of business being done in in Al in North Carolina Florida State invites students to apply from North Carolina they do make money Florida State comes to North Carolina to participate in Championship Games Florida State comes to North Carolina to have board meetings that might only be a four on the scale from 1 to 10 but it is on the scale and because it’s somewhere on the scale I’m going to interpret it to say that meets the requirements and and that is where going to the court of appeals or or the Supreme Court of the North Carolina that’s what they’re asking in their petition for the Supreme Court to say no that that Troy case actually laid out a substantial a substantially different set of facts than what is happening here with Florida State yeah that that makes a lot of sense that really clarifies for me because I I was just having a hard time understanding how that was the precedent when it seemed so different um Doug took the words out of jy’s yeah because I was going to say some of what he just said there in that you know they they they have activities I’m sure they’re they’re getting um um scholarships and applications applications thank you not scholarships applications and things like that and it’s a it’s a definitional issue and I I like the way you you laid it out there a nine versus a four versus a five versus a one if as long as it meets the definition it might not be as strong of a business relationship but it’s still some sort of a business relationship so um that was perfectly perfectly eloquently said there Doug we wouldn’t have expected anything else but um I thought I was gonna have to be accj y I didn’t have to Doug did it for me he did a great job of explaining because I I I kept coming to that thinking this doesn’t make a lot of sense why they’re comparing the two and and it makes sense that there’s somewhat there’s somewhat of a comparison there but not to the full extent yeah uh okay so I have one last followup question I’m not going to try and pin you down on the Supreme Court thing uh last time we talked you know you were pretty you felt pretty certain that it would not go uh the federal route and end up in the Supreme Court you talked about the the the good faith and credit clause that you know each state had to respect the decisions in the other state especially if if if one state came to a decision first if there was a a final verdict or or judgment um you talked about that a little bit um but now in now you just mentioned um the the uh I forget what you called it but the other Clause where if there’s a matter between two states that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction so I want to give you just a hypothetical and you don’t I’m not trying to pin you down you don’t need to give me a definitive answer I I just kind of like to hear uh just a little bit of an open response from you on this scenario um so if we if let’s let’s say there’s not a settlement and we go down this route all the way to the end similar time frames because we’re you know there there’s like one train pulls ahead one train other train pulls ahead we have a delay in either court but similar time frames and in North Carolina let’s say we get a judgment uh in favor of the ACC and then and then let’s say in Florida we get relatively around the same time we get a judgment where uh in favor of sovereign immunity in in favor of Florida State being a sovereign entity um and there’s some there’s a conflict basically some sort of conflict in the rulings uh whether it comes down to sovereign immunity or another Factor um where where do you see where do you see us going do you see that as still just a simple matter of the good faith and credit that that the State of Florida would back off and say well North Carolina decided it or could we see a scenario where a judge in the State of Florida or or perhaps the attorney general or the governor says no we have a judgment here in the State of Florida we don’t believe that that the law was interpreted interpreted correctly in North Carolina and that decision in North Carolina is not going to be enforced here in the State of Florida do you do you see that as a possibility where we have real competing uh judg and if so what are we looking at then like you mentioned it’s not every case is heard by the Supreme Court it’s a small percentage of them I kind of think that that would be kind of a new unprecedented case with the big business of sports billion dooll industries that maybe the Supreme Court would want to get involved they’ve gotten involved in these NCAA lawsuits uh but I just want to hear kind of just an open response from you on on that scenario I know I gave you a lot of hypotheticals there that’s right you want my thought process you you want you want some indication of what the the issues are let’s back out for just a second and show a clear example of what we mean by the Full Faith and Credit laaw in my state of Georgia you have to be 21 to drink in Louisiana you have to be 18 to drink if a Louisiana resident comes to Georgia Louisiana resident can’t buy beer Louisiana resident can’t say well my state I only have to be 18 the state of Georgia applies likewise if my daughter who just turned 18 goes to Louisiana she’s going to have a great time and I have to trust her to make good choices the state is able to have their own rules their own laws and similarly what we’ve seen in some of these Civil Right cases and in some of these abortion cases not to get too political but whatever the ruling is in Texas applies to Texas residents and whatever the ruling is in uh Wyoming applies to Wyoming residents even if those are two different opinions and two different set of facts the problem we have here and and we talked about this originally because we were following David McKenzie down this path of the full faith in credit clause if we get to an ultimate judgment ultimate decision post appeal whatever Court finishes first it does have to be respected by the other court by the other state but I’m starting to see some significant obstacles and roadblocks that tell me we’re never going to get to a point where we’re actually having two cases go that far down the rails and the reason why is because of what we’re talking about right now with the sovereign immunity issue that is a procedural issue that has to be established as a foundation to these cases proceeded so if we get a year from now and there’s no settlement and North Carolina has concluded based on the Supreme Court of North Carolina that sovereign immunity doesn’t apply and the Court of Appeals in Florida has concluded that sovereign immunity does apply that’s where the conflict involving not two states involving a state a state agency the Board of Trustees and the ACC so that was the second part of why I thought previously there was a problem because it didn’t involve two states this is involving the State of Florida and the ACC now rereading the clause on in the Constitution it’s just a controversy involving a state so I would see I would expect that if we don’t have the North Carolina Supreme Court agreeing that this should be in Florida and if we don’t have Florida saying no North Carolina was first you need to go play in the sand lot of North Carolina then I believe there is a foundational issue that has to be resolved at the federal level and that to your point then the the Supreme Court when they deny C what they’re saying nine times out of 10 is we believe the lower court was correct well there is no lower federal court two competing state courts saying two different things so to your part to your point Steve it may be that the a the Supreme Court says this is something we need to resolve because this is a new upand cominging issue what’s the percentage of that happening less than 5% chance 95% chance we reach a settlement long before that that happens it’ be fun though oh yeah hey we we if that happens Doug okay we we need you we need you to go to Washington and be our our our man uh you’ll be the man of the people out there on the front steps of the Supreme Court rule reading that ruling you know just like Bush V Gore so many years ago yep I will do that for you all well I I say it’s fun because we don’t have skin in the game yeah Doug has skin in the game so maybe not quite as much fun so before I get to the final item uh with ag Moody and the R mandamus I do want to get back to something you commented on in my first question and Stephen I have a bit of a disagreement here and I want to see maybe you can set up one of us straight and that is this whole opt out versus lookin situation with ESPN so forever uh it seems like at least FSU was saying this is an opt out this is an opt out this is an opt out all of a sudden now we’re hearing this look in clause to me there is a substantial difference between those two things Steve disagrees and says it doesn’t really matter I don’t want to put words in your well what I what I said you’re saying that there’s a definite distinct difference between a lookin yeah and an opt out what I’m saying is the look in could be open-ended they could opt out they could ask to change the terms there could be a for a look in unless we know the exact language it could be a lot of different things okay so so here’s here’s I’ll give you the definitions that so that’s Steve’s definition JY definition is a lookin is just a look in and they can’t opt out they’re just looking in to maybe see who the new members are because we lost FSU and Clemson and now we’ve got Cal and and Stanford and do they rise to the same media value and all that kind of stuff so I’ll make the the distinction where Steve is saying it could a look in could have an opt out where I’m saying a look in it’s just a look in you’re still under contract what says Doug Rowan Steve’s right sort of he’s always to your point to your point JY if what you’re describing is the situation it’s just the status quo that’s that’s just the contract yeah look in provision is a legal uh option and we’ll talk about that in a minute versus the option to extend so the way I like to differentiate the two is one is passive and one is active what I mean by that is a look in provision means According to Jim Phillips who has recently started talking in this these terms yes is the ACC has the chance to look in and decide do they want to renegotiate do they want to extend or do they want to extinguish they have three options okay but if they don’t do anything then pursuant to Jim Phillips the contract is through 2036 Okay so that is a thing it’s an unusual thing why would you need to have a fixed window by which to renegotiate a contract and I don’t practice entertainment law I’d love to you know talk to one of my friends and and get their perspective it doesn’t seem typical in contract terms okay what is typical in contract terms is a unilateral extension which is what Florida State alleged in their complaint the allegation was the ACC agreement with ESPN only goes through 2027 but by February of 2025 the ACC unilaterally has the right to extend that to 2036 without any further negotiations that is typical in some of these contracts I have that with my leasing office you know leasing space for my office if I want to extend I just say I check the box and say I want to extend no no more negotiating no more terms there’s an escalation Clause it goes up by four and a half percent already on an annual basis so one of those things make sense and is common one of those is highly unusual now to that end ESPN got very upset when Florida State disclosed something in their contract agreement yeah and it wasn’t mentioned in North Carolina mecklinburg County Courthouse what was disclosed that upset ESPN but if you compare the two complaints and the two agreements and what was shared in ACC versus Florida State and mecklinburg and what was shared in Florida State versus ACC in Tallahassee there’s really only one paragraph that was only in one lawsuit and that was regarding this option and a unilateral option A unilateral option without any additional consideration so to go back to your earlier theme and concept it does seem like the ACC keeps tripping over itself and doing dumb things and they’re going to reap the benefits of those poor choices yeah so just to clarify when you say unilateral you’re you’re saying one party would have the option and are you saying that would be the the would be the ACC or would be ESPN ESPN if ESPN does nothing the ESPN ACC agreement ends in 20 27 if ESPN affirmatively chooses to extend the agreement at a 45% annual escalation it can go up to 2036 so then so then the Commissioners being a little um kg thank you and and we saw that with commissioner K Out With The Pack 12 when when they were trying to get a a deal before that whole thing fell apart and that’s what Comm Commissioners are some somewhat cheerleaders they’re they’re out there to put the best face on for the conference and to appear as strong as possible so that they’re in the strongest possible negotiating position so he’s doing his job commissioner Phillips commissioner Phillips said at the ACC meetings there’s just one or two things that need to be looked into those one or two things are whether or not ESPN is going to continue this agreement past 2027 yeah pretty big thing one or two things all right let’s get to the RIT of mandamus when we did this episode I looked at this I went I don’t quite understand why she’s using this she being AG Moody here this this looks like it’s for and this is a very simple man Layman man’s you know Google search as to what one of these suckers is but it doesn’t seem like it it really applies to what she’s trying to get at which is the actual agreement making it open to the public through public uh Records acts and things like that whereas a rid of mandamus is more you know kind of slapping um somebody’s hands that that’s at a lower level in in the government and saying hey you didn’t do what you’re supposed to you got to do it so um what am I missing on this uh why is she using this to to uh try to get at the uh media rights agreement can you help help me understand this because it just doesn’t seem like it fits for me here a RIT of mandamus is appropriate to be used to compel the release of Records after a public records request EST was made traditionally and the generic definition of a r mandamus is to file a RM mandamus in the appell at court to tell the lower court they need to do ex administrative job that they’re supposed to do uh firearms license ruling on a motion I’ve had motions sat that sat on judges desks for six months yeah waiting on a ruling you can go to the court of appeals and say we’ve given up would you please tell this judge that they need to rule on this motion in the next 10 days so that is the traditional sense but a RIT of mandamus can be used at the district court level here in leyon County okay to compel another individual to comply with a very clear administrative um order so in this case AG Moody issued the the request to the ACC for the public records to ESPN for the public records they failed to act so now the RIT of mandamus goes to the lower court to compel the action of the ACC and ESP ESPN perfect well you straighten me out that’s what I needed to know uh because I clearly was reading the uh kind of the general as you said definition and um you know I don’t know if that’s maybe specific to Florida or not and and how they how they use things but certainly I certainly understand public records laws and there has to be something that an A in any state can use to mandate somebody that they feel you know is withholding a public record um and if that’s it then that’s it I just didn’t it didn’t seem to Jive for me so I have a followup to that somewhat of a followup to that do you have time for another follow-up Doug I do okay all right so I like to give like like probably your favorite professors I like to give you an opportunity for open response okay um so now this is going to be this kind of GNA Verge on the law and politics and and that’s why it’s kind of a followup to jy’s question about AG Moody um so I know you you you’re you’re in the state of Georgia and you practice in the state of Georgia but um you know you’re very plugged into the situation with Florida State and just and and how they are connected within the state overall um I have said from the beginning that I expected the politicians in the State of Florida to get involved in this case in some way um and I thought it would have been sooner you know whether the governor the AG um so this was this has been kind of the the AG I I kind of termed it as her toes in the water she um you know she issues this writ she sent a letter to uh her fellow Attorneys General and other in the other states um that are covered under the ACC asking them basically just kind of putting it out there uh and asking them if they want to join forces with her um so just kind of open response where do you see uh as as far as the political situation in the State of Florida interacting with this case do you see any interaction moving forward could could instead of just a RIT like this could the AG decide to go ahead and Sue the ACC directly um you know asking and the other the other AGS from the other states to do the same do you see that happening would she have a case or a leg to stand on uh and do you see any further um interaction by the politicians in the State of Florida getting involved in this case well let me start by saying I don’t know AG Moody personally I I don’t know her reputation but looking at this cynically as a casual Observer of politicians I think it’s perfectly reasonable to presume that there will be an escalate nature of their involvement to your point there was a trial balloon it seem to be well received by residents of the State of Florida not everybody in Florida is an FSU fan but it is one of the two Flagship universities for the state and certainly attracts a lot of attention um I for a large part of the the population is boring and is uninteresting so anything that creates engagement just like we see on social media and our podcast that’s all we want is you know for me to hurl insults at you all so that you can clip them and share them on reals and talk about how you got to watch this episode so engagement works for politicians as well and that’s all they want they want a basis to have a tie to get whatever additional energy they can for their base for their voters to go out and vote for them and it is an election year so I would be shocked if this is the end of this this as far as the merits of the the suit and and what’s going to happen next look you know you can in law school we famous were saying you can indict a ham sandwich you literally can write up an indictment against a ham and cheese sandwich and say that it broke the law somehow so could there be more litigation could there be more posturing absolutely is there Merit in it that depends on the the state court judge that’s that’s listening to this and whether or not they’re an FSU fan and how much they want to put into it a an actual suit for I guess what she’s threatening is uh you know infringement on um interstate commerce and things like that I think that’s that’s a much further stretch uh much more uh a much less likely proceeding to take place but I do think you’ll see especially as we get to November more you know saber rattling and more yelling and crowing about how how much this is an injustice for our State University system the lawsuit is not going to cost Florida State a half a billion dollars the worst case scenario is Florida State remains in the ACC until 2036 how much will it cost to get out of that agreement that’s what we’re fighting over right the question is not does Florida State have to pay the AC see a half billion dollars no because we’ll just stay in FLA in the conference and watch all of our national aspirations go get flx down the drain We’re not gonna have to pay a half billion dollars to the AC well and I think that brings us full circle back to where I started this and it’s exactly that and I started with it in their introductory paragraph the two main questions number one what happens to our media rights as we talked about count the new count number one after somebody leaves and what is the actual withdrawal penalty isit this $130 $40 million or not I mean that’s the two things and then FSU or Clemson or anybody can figure out yep that’s the amount of money we’re willing to pay to get the heck out of here because we got greener pastures and more money to make potentially potentially I know we think they do uh in in other conferences here in the mountain but um you know that’s we don’t know that for sure but anyway so you know bring that full circle here Doug I can’t thank you enough for spending this much time with us again on the mountain we really really appreciate you coming on um and I want to kind of end it with you anything I know we talked about your your Twitter handle but anything else you need to get out there so people can find where you’re putting all your good information out at oh we’re really excited to be here and I enjoyed my time with you also trust me I’m a big boy if I didn’t like you guys I would have said no but uh you all put on a great show great production quality and uh ask good questions and I’m perfectly happy to stand here in the paint and take all the shots from the people who think that uh it should be otherwise uh I’ve got thick skin and that’s why you should join me on Twitter or X at Rohan Law PC uh that’s where we put most of our thoughts and most of our Impressions on what’s happening with this litigation and what’s happening with uh Clemson and some of this other stuff it appears that litigation and Collegiate football are now permanently or at least for the next 10 years likely going to be intertwined uh so I’d be happy to to learn about these issues and and share my thoughts in a way that is easily diges for our fans for our for our friends and for our viewers fantastic you do a great job and and I I just want to add you know again what we said at the beginning we appreciate you coming on and for all college football fans out there we have kind of a broad audience um if you are a college sports or just a sports fan in general uh you should be following uh at Doug it’s Rohan Law PC on Twitter actually definitely follow him I have your notifications on whenever tweet that’s that’s one of the better parts of my day what’s Doug talking about now and you know you’re commenting mostly on Florida State but also just all of the the things that are happening in college football college athletics right now it’s a massive time of of change I saw you commenting on the recent the the the golf issue um with the the police and the and the body cams at the uh what is it the PGA open yeah Championship Championship Championship uh so if you’re interested in really where Sports and the law intersect you cannot follow anybody better than Doug Rohan so we we love you we we love following you we love having you on we just appreciate your time and all all of our fans out there you should be following Doug for sure on Twitter Steve and JW you all are too kind I appreciate your the chance to be here all right thanks a lot hey thank you guys for watching make sure you give this episode a like subscribe if you like our content we’ll see you guys next time on the big mountain