Maryland ups the game

[-jk]

Maryland is trying to put the thumbscrews on the ACC.

Yeesh.

-jk

[hudlow]

Buyer's remorse...?

[moonpie23]

do the attorneys make money on this sort of thing? or is all that pro-bono?

[Matches]

Sounds like a very thin ploy to try to get the ACC to settle its ongoing claim against UMd.

UMd will have a significant problem proving that it has standing to sue the ACC (or Wake and Pitt - whatever) for trying - not succeeding, mind you, but *trying* - allegedly - to poach schools from the Big 10.

I understand the strategic value of asserting a counterclaim, but this one seems REALLY thin.

[Duvall]

Here's Maryland's Amended Answer and Counterclaims.

[throatybeard]

That escalated quickly.

[Blue in the Face]

Just wait until Maryland adds the mlbpa to the suit.

[OldPhiKap]

That escalated quickly.

Yeah, that really got out of hand.


Don't kill anyone with your trident -- er, sporkz.

[MCFinARL]

do the attorneys make money on this sort of thing? or is all that pro-bono?

Pro bono--haha.

Attorneys could, of course, "make money on this sort of thing," but it seems the Maryland Attorney General is heavily involved--so a lot of the work may be being done in-house, by staff attorneys, rather than by more expensive outside counsel. If attorney incentives are playing a role it may be the opposite of the one you imagine--that Maryland can pursue its claims without incurring significant extra costs for attorney time, while, it hopes, the ACC has to spring for costly outside counsel.

[Class of '94]

funny how things change....As an ACC-lifer, I wanted someway, somehow for MD to reconsider and stay with the ACC. However, after receiving more information on how MD handled their decision to leave the ACC (shaking hands and pledging their allegiance to the ACC while secretly and simultaneously brokering a deal with the Big Ten to join that conference) and now this, I wish MD could leave the conference today. Unfortunately, this is another example of MD not taking or acknowledging responsibility for their own actions and poor decisions; rather they just blame it on the supposedly NC-centric ACC.

Interestingly, if MD was to win this countersuit, it would imagine it would pay off (or come close to it) all of their athletic department debt; and for me that sends a message of MD blaming the ACC for not providing MD with enough tv money and revenues from their bad decision to build a new football stadium; and they want the ACC to take care of the bill. Of course, this isn't entirely true; but it continues to paint MD imo as a University that has not accountability and very over-inflated view of its self-worth and importance in the landscape of college athletics.

[Henderson]

What a graceful, gentlemanly people they are in Maryland.

[wilson]

So, let me get this straight...Maryland is countersuing based on the claim that the ACC and/or some of its member institutions have been attempting to woo B1G schools.
What, then, is Maryland's move to the B1G, if not the result of the B1G wooing an ACC school? Am I missing something?
pot-kettle-black.jpg

[MChambers]

So, let me get this straight...Maryland is countersuing based on the claim that the ACC and/or some of its member institutions have been attempting to woo B1G schools.
What, then, is Maryland's move to the B1G, if not the result of the B1G wooing an ACC school? Am I missing something?
pot-kettle-black.jpg

So Maryland's view is "do as I say, not as I do?"

[alteran]

So, let me get this straight...Maryland is countersuing based on the claim that the ACC and/or some of its member institutions have been attempting to woo B1G schools.
What, then, is Maryland's move to the B1G, if not the result of the B1G wooing an ACC school? Am I missing something?
pot-kettle-black.jpg

Clearly, you're missing something.

Successfully conspiring to undermine an entire conference (the ACC), while lying to fellow conference schools that everything was great while in fact you were actually threatening the finances of those schools? Well, that's clearly not an offense worth more than a teeny-weeny fraction of the 52 million your conference agreement says you owe when you leave.

Unsuccessfully conspiring to possibly weaken a solid conference (the Bigapalooza) while actually not lying to anyone, not causing any problems for any of those schools at all, and not violating any agreements or tripping any agreed upon penalties? 157 million.

I'm beginning to think the current ACC school with the biggest sense of entitlement does not reside in Chapel Hill.

While the audacity and stupidity of this lawsuit make me want to do otherwise, I think the ACC would be wise to settle the whole thing with Maryland. It would be worth 52 million never to see them again, frankly. And from what I understand, these conference exit fees are always negotiated down to something like half anyway.

Getting rid of Maryland? Awesome. Making them pay us 26 million to leave? Priceless.

[dpslaw]

The treble damages claim is simply another iteration of the harebrained antitrust claim that the Maryland court previously dismissed (without prejudice, unfortunately).

As a practical matter, one problem with making such specious claims is that the court may let its skepticism bleed over into its evaluation of Maryland's less baseless claims.

[throatybeard]

And from what I understand, these conference exit fees are always negotiated down to something like half anyway.

Kanye West taught us as much.

EDIT: I've received confused inquiries about this post. Please consult the second stanza of Mr West's "Gold Digger," about what happens to yo mon-nay when you break up.

[Atlanta Duke]

The counterclaim is characteristically spiteful - in addition to slamming the ACC, Maryland does a drive by slam of West Virginia in paragraph 103 by stating WVA joining the Big 12 is an "outlier" that probably is not viable for the long term due to travel issues. The Harvard of College Park then proceeds in paragraph 109 to go after the SEC and says the Terps would not deign to join the SEC given the low graduation rates of SEC schools as well as the SEC having no natural rivals for Maryland (as presumably opposed to the Iowa and Nebraska natural rivalries in the Big 10)

Maryland apparently has transferred its natural rivalry fixation to Penn State, which will be news to Penn State

[throatybeard]

The counterclaim is characteristically spiteful - in addition to slamming the ACC, Maryland does a drive by slam of West Virginia in paragraph 103 by stating WVA joining the Big 12 is an "outlier" that probably is not viable for the long term due to travel issues. The Harvard of College Park then proceeds in paragraph 109 to go after the SEC and says the Terps would not deign to join the SEC given the low graduation rates of SEC schools as well as the SEC having no natural rivals for Maryland (as presumably opposed to the Iowa and Nebraska natural rivalries in the Big 10)

Maryland apparently has transferred its natural rivalry fixation to Penn State, which will be news to Penn State

And what a "rivalry." They played each other regularly until about the time Penn State joined the Big Televen. Penn State leads the series 35-1-1. This is not a typo. The Maryland win was in 1961, and the tie was in 1989. They sometimes played in Baltimore. The series finale, for the time being I guess, was a 70-7 Penn State win.

http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div...hp?teamid=2514

This raises a question I hadn't thought of. Maryland and West Virginia have played each other frequently since WWII, and every year since 1980. Does that series survive the latest round of realignment?

West Virginia leads 26-22.

[Here is a Turtle]

And what a "rivalry." They played each other regularly until about the time Penn State joined the Big Televen. Penn State leads the series 35-1-1. This is not a typo. The Maryland win was in 1961, and the tie was in 1989. They sometimes played in Baltimore. The series finale, for the time being I guess, was a 70-7 Penn State win.

http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div...hp?teamid=2514

This raises a question I hadn't thought of. Maryland and West Virginia have played each other frequently since WWII, and every year since 1980. Does that series survive the latest round of realignment?

West Virginia leads 26-22.

Maryland viewing Penn St. as a rival now is news to me. The record speaks for itself. If Maryland has a football rival, it's West Virginia. Its usually pretty heated. The two schools play each other until 2017. Syracuse and Temple takes the spot for a couple years and the rivalry will probably resume in 2020.

As for the lawsuit, it seems like another method for them to settle. I'll probably sit down and read the whole thing tonight. If you're going to burn a bridge, might as well use a flamethrower instead of a match.

[Nugget]

The counterclaim is characteristically spiteful - in addition to slamming the ACC, Maryland does a drive by slam of West Virginia in paragraph 103 by stating WVA joining the Big 12 is an "outlier" that probably is not viable for the long term due to travel issues. The Harvard of College Park then proceeds in paragraph 109 to go after the SEC and says the Terps would not deign to join the SEC given the low graduation rates of SEC schools as well as the SEC having no natural rivals for Maryland (as presumably opposed to the Iowa and Nebraska natural rivalries in the Big 10)

Maryland apparently has transferred its natural rivalry fixation to Penn State, which will be news to Penn State

Those were amusing, as was the premise that the liquidated damages provision is so onerous and so restrictive of competition that no one could possibly jump conferences in the face of it (except that Maryland just did so).

The antitrust counterclaims are silly.

But, not having followed this as closely as others may have, it strikes me that Maryland may have some defenses to the ACC's claim for the penalty -- specifically, the contention that the liquidated damages clause was adopted without compliance with the ACC Constitution's requirements for amendments, if factually true, would seem to be a concern; and the argument that the amount of the "liquidated damages" is so excessive as to not bear a reasonable relation to the ACC's actual damages that it is an unenforceable penalty may also carry some weight.