North Carolina AD: Not good for the ACC for Florida State 'to be out there barking' about TV revenue

North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham is predictably displeased with Wednesday’s comments by Florida State president Richard McCollough about the ACC’s media rights deal.

A day after McCullough said he felt Florida State deserved bigger payouts than it was currently getting from the ACC, Cunningham didn’t have much sympathy for the Seminoles in an interview on 99.9 The Fan in Raleigh.

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"If they want to leave then that’s going to be their choice, but there’s certain obligations they do have,” Cunningham said. “We have an exit fee and we have a grant of rights. I believe the ACC is a great league. It’s been a great league for a long time.

"Their frustration about the money — everybody would like to have more money and everybody would like to win more. But we’re in an outstanding league and last I checked, the ACC won nine national championships last year, more than any other league in the country. So we’re doing something right.”

Cunningham went on to say he didn't believe a league had to have the most money to be the most successful.

“Now what they want to do and how they want to go about doing their business, that is their business but it does have an impact on us,” Cunningham said. “And quite frankly, I don’t think it’s good for our league for them to be out there barking like that.

"And I’d rather see them be a good member of the league and support the league and if they have to make a decision, then so be it. Pay for the exit fee, wait for your grant of rights that you’ve given and then in 2036 when those rights return to you, do whatever you want.”

McCullough’s comments came during a publicly streamed meeting of the school’s board of trustees. Florida State trustees collectively voiced their displeasure with the size of the payouts in the ACC compared to those in the Big Ten and SEC.

McCullough said he was "not satisfied" with the revenue the ACC distributed to each of its 14 teams and said if Florida State didn't get more money, the school may have to leave the conference.

“With the large media deals that have been made with places like the Big Ten and the SEC, which in many ways are creating — maybe it’s an exaggeration — an existential crisis perhaps for Florida State University as we will be $30 million per school per year behind in our gap in conference distribution,” McCullough said.

But as Cunningham noted, Florida State doesn't have a clear path to leaving the ACC anytime soon. The conference's schools signed a grant of rights deal through 2036 as part of a long-term media deal with ESPN.

If Florida State wanted to leave the ACC next season, it would have to find a conference willing to accept it, pay an exit fee to the ACC and waive any annual revenue it would get from the conference through 2036. And as the trustees' discussion showed on Wednesday, the school currently doesn't have any idea how a plan to make all that happen could be executed.