I'm not a lawyer, so I am not an expert on GORs. I have been an investment analyst in which contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars were involved. In general, most contracts have lots of language that could be legal outs if the contract is disputed. For example, a company explained to me that not painting the yellow safety lines on time (as defined by the contract) could be a breach of contract.
I haven't read the ACC GORs contract in years, but my understanding of broad GORs is that you very rarely win if you take the contract to court if they are broad GORs. Media contracts in recent years have a lot more language in them because people didn't anticipate new ways to share content like streaming 15 years ago. Unless there are specific things that can be challenged in the contract, and the ACC GORs contract that has floated around is very short so I think it would be tough to find outs in the contract. As for the Pac 12 and Big 12 GORs, because they were almost up, I don't think any of the schools that are leaving wanted to exit early and pay a large dollar penalty and they didn't think it was worth challenging the GORs.
That said, there are potential other outs of contracts that some schools may try. For example, I would assume any school would want to sue in their home state and there could be state laws concerning contracts that could be in favor of the school. And, some schools could try to argue that the University President did not have the legal authority to sign such a large contract,... I'm not saying they would win, but I'm sure they will have top legal advisors to figure it out. And, I wouldn't think North Carolina politicians would look to help UNC break the GORs while leaving behind NC St., Duke, and Wake Forest.
Finally, I don't think anyone has seen Notre Dame's contract with the ACC outside of the GORs for their non-football sports so we don't really know if Notre Dame is contractually obligated to join the ACC if they join a conference for football.
