According to Yahoo! Sports, the University of Maryland has filed a $157 million dollar counter suit against the Atlantic Coast Conference over the record $52.3 million dollar exit fee to join the Big Ten.
“Our lawsuit calls the ACC’s ‘exit fee’ what it really is – an antitrust violation and an illegal activity,” Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler said in a statement. “Our motion in North Carolina will ensure that a Maryland court will rule on the case.”
But that’s not all. The report further states that Maryland has accused ESPN of instructing ACC leadership on how to attract Big Ten schools to the conference. Furthermore there’s also claims that Wake Forest and Pittsburgh officials – which recently joined the ACC – were ‘openly recruiting’ Big Ten schools to jump ship to the ACC.
Originally a North Carolina court rejected Maryland’s request back in November to dismiss the ACC’s lawsuit after the conference decided to hike the exit fee from $17.4 million to the massive $52.3 million. However the only thing this did was set up the counter suit in Maryland according to Y!.
