UPDATE:
Duke President Nan Keohane outlined Duke's favorable vote for inviting Boston College to the ACC in an e-mail to The Chronicle Monday afternoon.
"We opposed expansion to either 11 or 12 teams back in the summer, preferring 9 or 10," Keohane wrote. "Now that we are at 11, however, we appear to be in something of an unstable equilibrium, and an eventual move to 12 seems almost inevitable. Duke found the arguments for Boston College as a 12th member attractive on several grounds, and we are satisfied that the divisional concerns that worried us earlier are being taken care of. Since we can't go back to the status quo before June, we think this is a good outcome."
Keohane, who is currently vacationing in Maine during Fall Break, said she spoke with Athletic Director Joe Alleva, Faculty Athletics Representative Kathleen Smith, among others, before participating in a Sunday morning teleconference that finalized the ACC expansion process.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Boston College accepted a unanimous invitation from the Atlantic Coast Conference Sunday afternoon, becoming its 12th member and ending a roller coaster ride of an expansion process.
"The ACC is a strong, stable conference," Boston College President Rev. William Leahy said. "The move to the ACC will generate greater revenues in the future."
The ACC presidents voted 9-0 to extend an offer to Boston College during a Sunday morning teleconference. The rationale behind the ACC's courting of the Eagles was two-fold: academics and athletics, and more pressingly, football and money.
"I think they'll be superb members of this conference; I think they'll fit extraordinarily well," ACC commissioner John Swofford said during a press conference Sunday night. "They share this conference's values all along. They've had an interest in being part of this. And I think it just adds one more excellent school to what will now be a 12-member mix."
Meanwhile, Big East commissioner Michael Tranghese said he was extremely disappointed with Boston College's decision, of which he was notified by Rev. Leahy early Sunday.
"Our membership is very surprised that the ACC presidents continue to come back to our league for membership," Tranghese said.
The ACC has already lured the memberships of current Big East members Miami and Virginia Tech, schools that accepted ACC invites in July and will assume their new place in July 2004.
Along with Miami, Boston College and Syracuse were the original targets for ACC expansion. However, the necessary votes could not be assembled by the ACC presidents to approve of the northeastern schools. Duke and North Carolina were opposed to expanding beyond 10 schools; N.C. State voted against adding Boston College; and Virginia would not support expansion unless Virginia Tech was offered membership.
The time frame for Boston College's admission to the ACC is yet to be decided.
"When B.C. joins us, our presidents this morning affirmed that we would play a championship game," Swofford said. "We just don't know exactly when we will be 12 at this point. The next question is would we try to have a championship game if were 11 for a year or two. We have not fully answered that question; we will continue to support the legislation that we put forward mainly on as much as anything on the principle that a conference should have the latitude whether it wants to have a championship game or not, and that 12 is a rather arbitrary number.
"It could be 2006, but that's really an issue for BC and the Big East Conference to determine," Swofford continued. "I think we all know there are going to be other things happening in terms of conference affiliations in the very near future, and we'll just have to see how that sorts itself out."
Duke President Nan Keohane and Director of Athletics Joe Alleva could not be reached for comment as of Sunday evening. Boston College brings much to the table for the ACC academically, athletically and economically.
"If you look at their graduation rates for their student body as a whole and for their athletes, B.C. will jump right into the higher echelon of our conference," Swofford said.
Athletically, the Eagles are competitive in football, basketball and several Olympic sports, therefore providing an all-around athletic program that will supplement the competitiveness of the ACC.
And other than the fact that Boston College's membership will allow the ACC to hold a football championship game--it is projected to generate $7 to 9 million in revenue--the Boston metropolitan area is one of the nation's largest, thereby aiding the ACC in product sales, television market deals and more.
"[Boston College] takes us into a market and a part of the country where obviously we have not been on a regular basis in the past," Swofford said.
Indeed, the school is geographically displaced from the rest of the ACC but it does maintain the league's name, along the Atlantic coastline. Such would have not been the case had Notre Dame been invited, the school which Boston College replaced in the ACC's search for a 12th member.
Now the Big East is forced to resuscitate its efforts to maintain itself, though a plan had been in place to raid Conference USA of four of its current member schools, a plan that would have allowed the Big East to maintain separate football and basketball divisions.
The Massachusetts school's action could now be the subject of a lawsuit, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.
"Our claim is that Boston College is part of a continued conspiracy to weaken and destroy the Big East as a competitor for broadcast revenue and other rights," he said.
Blumenthal, as the Big East's lead attorney, currently has litigation pending against Miami, a lawsuit which was originally filed in July when Miami first announced its intention to leave for the ACC.
The ACC was also a defendant in the case, but a Connecticut judge removed ACC as a defendant Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Please stay tuned to The Chronicle Online for further updates.
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