Boston College Eagles - Move To The ACC

Move To The ACC

On July 1, 2005, Boston College moved from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

In 2003 the ACC announced plans to expand from nine teams to twelve. Miami, Syracuse, and Boston College were rumored to be the three schools under consideration, and all three met with officials from the ACC regarding membership. It was later revealed that Miami had been dissatisfied with the Big East and its leadership since a formal letter of complaint was issued by them to Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese several years prior in 1999. Their issues went unresolved, leading to Miami's interest in the ACC—a league who had been pursuing the college football superpower since the mid-1990s, at the request of neighboring football schools Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, representing UConn (whose membership in Big East Football was then pending) led the "remaining" football schools (Virginia Tech, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia) in the filing of two lawsuits. One suit named the ACC, and the other named Miami and Boston College, accusing them of conspiring to weaken the Big East. Syracuse was not named as a defendant in part because they never made public comments about the ongoing situation.

In an unexpected turn, due in large measure to political pressure applied by Governor Mark Warner of Virginia, the ACC replaced Syracuse with Virginia Tech in its expansion vote. Things became even more surprising when, reached by phone at a conference in Switzerland, then-N.C. State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox cast a shocking last-minute "no" vote against Boston College. As a result, the ACC extended invitations only to Miami and Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech immediately accepted the invitation and filed court papers to get themselves out of the awkward position of suing their new conference. The remaining four plaintiffs removed Boston College from the list of defendants and asked both BC and Syracuse to join their suit. Boston College and Syracuse declined.

The Big East presidents and athletic directors met in summer 2003 to discuss replacing the departed members and establishing a process by which members would exit the conference in the future. The remaining members of the conference moved towards establishing a US$5 million exit fee and 27 month waiting period for any other schools who wished to leave in the future. At a Big East meeting in Newark on October 1, conference presidents asked BC president Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., about rumors surrounding the Eagles' intentions. Fr. Leahy conceded that the Eagles might indeed be leaving the conference. It has been suggested that BC might have remained if the Big East had spun out its non-football schools and reconfigured as an eight- or nine-team league. The Big East considered extending invitations to Penn State and Notre Dame, however neither school showed interest in joining the conference. Several models for a new conference were discussed; however it was eventually decided that the football schools would explore separating from the basketball-only schools and establish an 8-team all-sports conference. It was very quickly realized that this scenario would not be feasible due to the fact that the new conference would lose its automatic NCAA basketball tournament berth and possibly its BCS bid because the football schools had not been together long enough to satisfy certain NCAA rules. It was then decided that for the time being, the conference would add additional football and basketball schools and continue in its bifurcated structure until such time as the football schools could establish their own conference. Unhappy with this decision, the administration of Boston College once again entertained overtures from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Speculation that Chancellor Foxe, a Notre Dame trustee, cast her vote against BC so that the ACC might consider extending membership to Notre Dame was fueled by press accounts reporting that a bid to the Fighting Irish was imminent. But in October 2003, the ACC voted unanimously to invite Boston College to become their twelfth member. When BC accepted, they were returned to the lawsuit still pending against Miami by several Big East schools. In response, Boston College petitioned the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts for a declaratory judgment to avoid paying the increased Big East "exit fee" that had been voted for but not yet amended to the Big East's constitution. Boston College won both decisions, but the Big East appealed. A secret settlement reported to be worth US$5 million was reached in May 2005, and as part of the settlement the ACC agreed to play a number of football games each year against Big East teams. However, this large settlement was offset by the cumulative legal fees incurred by the Big East in pursuing the litigation. Boston College joined the ACC in 2005, and was exempted from having to play football against their former conference colleagues who had been party to the lawsuit. Boston College officials have stated that the university will not schedule games against any of their former Big East Football colleagues with the exception of Syracuse. An eight-year deal to play Syracuse in football starting in 2010 has been signed, and a four-year deal to play Providence College in basketball begins in the 2006–7 school year.

Financially, the move to the ACC would appear to have been positive for the Eagles. Writing in the Charleston West Virginia Gazette, Mitch Vingle used the Big East's tax filings to examine payouts to full Big East members (schools playing both football and basketball schools) compared to payouts to ACC schools. ACC schools received an average of US$10.85 million for the tax year ending June 30, 2006, Big East full members averaged a little more than half what ACC programs took in at US$5,842,599. Additionally, Big East payments have dropped in each of the last three reporting periods.