The Big East Conference lost another school Sunday as Boston College accepted an invitation to join the Atlantic Coast Conference and become its 12th member. This action follows the June defection of two other schools from the Big East to the ACC: University of Miami (Fla.) and Virginia Tech.
The nine current ACC schools unanimously voted to invite Boston College, formally extending an invitation during a Sunday morning conference call. By Sunday afternoon, the Golden Eagles announced their acceptance.
“The ACC is a strong, stable conference,” Boston College President William J. Leahy, S.J., said in a press release. “The move to the ACC will generate greater revenues in the future. We have secured our future for the long term.”
Boston College was a charter member of the Big East, along with Georgetown and five other schools, when the conference was founded in 1979 for basketball. The Big East did not make its own football conference until 1991.
NCAA guidelines mandate that a conference needs 12 member schools to play a football championship game; the winner of such faceoffs are afforded the opportunity to play in the Bowl Championship Series. The decision to add Boston College as a 12th member of the ACC would guarantee the conference a much-coveted berth in the BCS.
Additionally, the sponsorship and television rights contracts for the ACC conference championship game are expected to rise by at least $10 million, according to ACC estimates.
In a press release, Big East Conference Commissioner Mike Tranghese said, “We are extremely disappointed with Boston College’s decision to leave. Our membership is very surprised that the ACC presidents continue to come back to our league for membership.” Echoing Tranghese’s comments, Pittsburgh Athletic Director Jeff Long said, “We are disappointed with the ACC’s continued attack on the Big East Conference and in Boston College’s decision to turn its back on its fellow members of the Big East.”
Following the courting process last spring, the Eagles’ addition to the ACC was not unexpected. The ACC passed over Boston College in favor of Virginia Tech in June.
While Miami and Virginia Tech will begin playing in the ACC next year, most expect Boston College to stay in the Big East at least through 2004. The exit fee that Boston College must pay to leave earlier than 2006 could reach $5 million, in addition to a $1 million entrance fee for the ACC.
With the ACC’s raid of the Big East believed to be over, some reports from Syracuse and Pittsburgh have indicated those schools’ interest in the possibility of joining the Big 10.
“We are continuing to move forward with our plans to maintain our status as one of the nation’s top conferences,” Tranghese said.
But when the Big East’s BCS contract expires after the 2005 season, the Big East is in danger of losing its automatic bid if other strong football schools are not added to the five-team football lineup.
At meetings earlier this month, members of the Big East discussed two options to reform the conference. The proposals included cutting back the current conference membership to eight or nine football schools or adding three or four new schools to make a total of 16, where eight teams would play football and eight would not.
The Big East is exploring recruitment of new member schools. any reports have said that the Big East will invite Louisville and Cincinnati as all-sport members and Marquette and DePaul as non-football members at a conference meeting in November. All four of these schools are currently in Conference USA.
Boston College’s departure leaves another vacancy for an all-sport member. Possible candidates include Central Florida, South Florida, Marshall, Army, Navy and East Carolina. Central and South Florida are currently believed to be the favorites, as the Big East looks to regain Floridian markets it lost when Miami joined the ACC.
Current Big East football members Connecticut, Rutgers, Pittsburgh and West Virginia filed a suit Tuesday against Boston College, its athletic director and four ACC officials in Connecticut state court. In the suit, the schools allege that Boston College and the ACC conspired to weaken the Big East conference. Georgetown is not party to the suit and Georgetown Athletic Director Joseph Lang could not be reached for comment. He has not issued any statements on the issue either. In June, the same four schools filed a similar suit against Miami.