Monday was a busy day for chest pounding in the ACC.

In Tallahassee, the litigious folks at Florida State filed a new amended complaint against the conference in Leon County Circuit Court, taking aim at former commissioner John Swofford and the financial implications of his relationship with television partner Raycom.

It accuses the conference of “chronic fiduciary mismanagement, bad faith and self-dealing” in its handling of its Tier II and Tier III media rights.

Meanwhile in Chapel Hill, the chairman of North Carolina’s Board of Trustees decided it was time for his school to get into the act by throwing around some of the same rhetoric and making some of the same threats as the Seminoles.

In an interview with the 247Sports site Inside Carolina, John Preyer said that “the reality is that athletics has changed dramatically since the ACC was put together at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro.”

As such, he added that “if the current financial model of the Atlantic Coast Conference doesn’t improve, then it would cause real concern about how Carolina could continue to maintain its excellence in athletics.”

Preyer’s ominous, though nonspecific comments have created a feeding frenzy of speculation among the social media Illuminati eager to read between the lines.

It’s a narrative best summed up by a post from Mit Winter, who identifies himself as an NIL attorney.

“This sounds like a school that’s laying the groundwork to leave the ACC,” he wrote.

But does it really?

Just for kicks and giggles, let’s look at things from a slightly different angle.

What if the alarmist oratory coming from FSU and now UNC isn’t a prelude to an exit, but rather a genius strategy to raise the kind of money that would allow them to make up a large chunk of the revenue gap they currently face while allowing them to remain in the ACC.

Where they stand a much better chance of competing for national championships in the sports for which each is known.

Think about it.

As confident as the Seminoles are about winning a favorable judgment that would allow them to become a free agent on the conference realignment carousel, they’re pinning their hopes on a technicality.

Regardless of how restrictive the ACC’s grant of rights is or how bad its television contract might be – and it is to media rights deals what Louisville is to basketball these days – FSU willingly signed off on it.

Not once. But twice.

And even if it does win, there’s no guarantee that either the SEC or Big Ten is interested in expanding again. Regardless of how attractive an addition FSU fancies itself to be.

So what if a favorable verdict isn’t really the end game?

Maybe the goal is simply to create such a frenzy among the fan base – especially the wealthiest donors among it – that they start passing around the hat to raise the $500 or so million needed to pay the ACC’s exit fee.

Once all that money is in the bank, the urgency to leave would be gone.

I wasn’t a math major, but by my calculations, $500 million would effectively erase that $30 million gap between the ACC’s annual payout to those of the Big Ten and SEC for at least the next 16 years.

That would allow the Seminoles to compete financially with their neighboring rival Florida without having to directly compete with the Gators, or any other of the SEC’s top programs, on the field for an automatic bid into the newly expanded College Football Playoff.

It’s such a genius strategy that UNC sounds ready to copy it. Minus the lawsuit, since that’s already in the works.

And if it yields the desired financial result, it won’t take long for Clemson and Miami among others to start putting out their own doomsday statements to kick off their own fundraising efforts.

As for the Tar Heels, they aren’t going anywhere at least until the grant of rights expires in 2036. Especially if legislation that effectively binds them and rival NC State at the hip in future conference movement passes the UNC System’s Board of Governors next month.

But there is the threat that the school’s ultra-successful Olympic sports programs would have to be slashed and its football program severely hamstrung if enough money isn’t raised to sustain them.

“Obviously we have to look at the expense of those Olympic sports and what we might be able to do to offset that expense and cost in the future by increasing revenue,” Preyer told IC.

UNC reported $122.6 million in “total operating revenues” in 2021-22, most of it coming from football and men’s basketball.

So how much revenue is enough?

That’s an open-ended question, because no amount is ever going to be enough.

So start riling up the masses and pass the hat.