Updated 9:35 p.m.
Big East schools Syracuse and Pittsburgh have signaled their intentions to join the ACC as the conference’s 13th and 14th members.
A high-ranking ACC source said Saturday on condition of anonymity that both universities have sent letters of application to the ACC. The schools’ additions would have to be approved by nine of the 12 ACC presidents, and signs Saturday pointed toward both schools joining the conference.
N.C. State chancellor Randy Woodson said the ACC will hold a news conference Sunday or Monday. Woodson said the 12 ACC presidents are unified on expansion, but he wouldn’t say whether they have voted on Pittsburgh and Syracuse.
Late Saturday night the ACC announced a media teleconference for 9:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
Before Florida State’s football team played No. 1 Oklahoma Saturday night, though, FSU President Eric Barron told The Associated Press that the ACC was excited about adding to its “northern tier.”
“Pittsburgh and Syracuse, who have applied, these are solid academic schools, and the ACC is a truly academic conference,” Barron said. “Certainly great basketball teams, a good history of football.
“I'm sure consideration will be very fast. I'll be surprised if it’s not tomorrow [Sunday].”
The New York Times first reported late Friday talks between the ACC and Syracuse and Pittsburgh. Other media outlets, including The Associated Press, reported the letters of application Saturday.
The AP also reported that the Big East requires departing schools to pay a $5 million exit fee and to provide 27 months of notice.
According to an unidentified ACC source, at least 10 schools have recently inquired about joining the ACC, whose membership consists of Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.
Woodson said the schools in the ACC have “a tremendous commitment” to staying together. He said the conference’s presidents met Wednesday in Greensboro and have met on several conference calls since then.
“We’re trying to be proactive and stay strong,” Woodson said.
The news is the latest sign in recent weeks that a dramatic shift is occurring in the landscape of college sports:
- Texas A&M is trying to leave the Big 12 for the SEC under the threat of lawsuits from other Big 12 schools.
- The Austin American-Statesman reported that with the Big 12 in danger of dissolving, Texas was considering whether its best destination is the Pac-12, the ACC or independent status.
- According to the Palm Beach Post, Florida State was forming an exploratory committee to evaluate its future conference options.
In the midst of all those developments, athletics administrators and executives with TV networks and bowl games are saying that superconferences of 14, 16 or even 18 schools are the future of college athletics.
“The uncertainty of the future of some conferences is probably at the genesis of this,” Wake Forest athletic director Ron Wellman said, “and where that will all take us, whether it takes us to superconferences or not remains to be seen, but that certainly is being discussed more and more every day.”
Fans disenchanted with the Bowl Championship Series could be satisfied if a set-up of four superconferences paves the way for a football playoff that could be palatable for the college presidents who have long opposed the idea.
Four superconference champions in the semifinals of a playoff wouldn’t be much different from the “plus-one” bowl scenario that was supported by the ACC and SEC last year before getting voted down.
If college athletics is heading toward superconferences, the stakes for conferences and universities will be high. The overwhelming majority of TV money would be controlled by the four superconferences and the schools fortunate to be members.
North Carolina athletic director Dick Baddour said ACC commissioner John Swofford took an aggressive approach last year when he created a 12-person committee charged with investigating the expansion landscape.
Baddour, a member of the committee, declined to describe its recommendations. Two months ago, Baddour thought expansion would be staved off at least for a while, but that changed quickly.
“If you think about this nationally, it’s obvious that the world is turning upside down,” Baddour said.
Along with the Big Ten, the Pac-12 and the SEC, the ACC seems to be in position to be one of the four conferences left standing from among six that currently have automatic BCS bids.
Despite the report about the Florida State committee evaluating the school’s options, the ACC presidents recently voted unanimously to increase the exit fee from the conference to $20 million, from about $12 million to $14 million.
Staff writers J.P. Giglio, Robbi Pickeral and Edward G. Robinson contributed to this report.
