Big East, ACC chase big prize — Notre Dame

By Craig Barnes
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Big East Conference presidents will meet Nov. 4 and vote on a final reorganization plan for the conference, and it is the deadline for Notre Dame to make its intentions clear.

With that in mind, the Atlantic Coast Conference has re-opened exploratory conversations with the Irish to see if there is a scenario that is acceptable to both sides that would allow the school to become the conference’s 12th team.

The ACC’s Council of Presidents held a conference call Friday and discussed the Notre Dame situation. The members participating in the call endorsed conversations with the Irish.

‘‘The Olympic sports are important to Notre Dame, and the ACC provides a stable home for them,’’ one source said, ‘‘but resolution of the football question is the biggest issue. Notre Dame wants to remain independent, and the ACC wants full participation membership. There may or may not be a resolution. That’s what the conversations are about.’’

The first contact between the ACC and Notre Dame occurred over a year ago. Notre Dame closely monitored the recent ACC expansion. Notre Dame has an exclusive contract with NBC that pays the Irish more than $8 million annually to televise its home games.

The money and Notre Dame’s commitment to a national schedule are obstacles to a compromise. Notre Dame needs schedule space for Southern California, Michigan, Purdue, the military academies and perhaps Michigan State and Boston College.

Several scenarios are under consideration. One would have the Irish join the ACC in all sports but football, with the conference having the right of first refusal if Notre Dame decided to abandon its independent football status in the future.

The Irish also could agree to play four or five ACC games, not qualify for the league championship and retain all of its football money while agreeing to get no share of the ACC’s basketball money.

If Notre Dame would agree to play six ACC games, the league could reduce the number of conference games needed to qualify for the championship game from eight to six, making Notre Dame a full-participating member and leaving the distribution of money to be resolved.

The ACC’s petition to the NCAA for a championship game in 2004 with only 11 teams was informally rejected by the championship committee, increasing the urgency for the conference to get a 12th team. A final decision is not expected on the proposal until April.

Notre Dame is adding 64 scholarships to its non-revenue sports programs over the next four years, but in an effort to find them a home, Athletic Director Kevin White would like to leave football out of the equation.

In the Big East reorganization, Notre Dame, Villanova, St. John’s, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Providence, DePaul and Marquette would be basketball-only schools. Louisville, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Boston College and perhaps UCF or USF would play football. Central Florida or South Florida would play only football.

When the new Bowl Championship Series contract is instituted in 2007, Notre Dame’s situation won’t change much. The Irish automatically qualify with nine victories. It could lose the ‘‘automatic’’ status, but as one bowl source said, ‘‘Who wouldn’t take Notre Dame with nine wins?’’

 

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/colleges/6854899.htm
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Notre Dame's ACC scenario set
Sources say presidents, chancellors arrange time to discuss Irish as 12th member
GREGG DOYEL
Raleigh Bureau

ACC Commissioner John Swofford and Notre Dame have agreed on a membership scenario that would allow the school to join the ACC in stages, leaving the future of both institutions in the hands of ACC presidents and chancellors.

According to sources close to negotiations, ACC presidents and chancellors have set aside a time to discuss -- and possibly vote on -- Notre Dame's candidacy to become the ACC's 12th member.

"The stage has been set," one source said Wednesday night.

The scenario in place has Notre Dame joining the ACC in 2004 or 2005 in every sport but football, with partial membership in football for several years but a commitment to become a full member by a specific date.

Two sources close to the process said ACC presidents and chancellors aren't guaranteed to accept Notre Dame on those terms, one of them putting the odds at 40 percent.

Even after growing to 11 teams this summer with the additions of Miami and Virginia Tech for 2004-05, the ACC's continued interest in expansion is obvious: With the NCAA sending negative signals about new legislation seeking a title game for 10-team leagues, the ACC wants a 12th team to stage a title game that could be worth $10 million annually.

The ACC's attraction to Notre Dame also is obvious. Notre Dame is the most influential Division I-A school in the country, with its own television deal and Bowl Championship Series tie-in. Swofford has had discussions with Notre Dame's television partner, NBC, about the Irish joining the ACC.

Notre Dame's interest in the ACC is less obvious, tied in large part to three interlocking variables to be played out during the next two years:

• The Fighting Irish's results in football.

• Notre Dame's TV rights after the 2005 season.

• The future of the BCS.

Notre Dame also has had overtures from the Big Ten, but sources say the school is drawn to the ACC's academics and status as perhaps the most powerful, prestigious conference in the country.

Notre Dame's football independence is critical to fans and alumni, associate athletics director John Heisler said, but it's not their decision to make.

"Independence in football has been a critical part of our identity, and right now there's not a reversal of field in (our) thinking," Heisler said. "I say with the idea that our fans and alumni are most outspoken in thinking that's tremendously important to Notre Dame.

"That doesn't necessarily carry the day in terms of all that you would consider, but I don't see the things going south that would suggest we wouldn't continue to make (independence) work."

In the current marketplace, Notre Dame is financially viable as an independent because it operates almost as a conference unto itself, with an $8.5 million annual deal with NBC and a connection to the BCS. In some respects, though, the future of those agreements is beyond Notre Dame's control.

NBC's contract to televise Notre Dame home football games expires after the 2005 season, and television executives believe NBC won't renew if the Fighting Irish aren't national contenders. This year, they aren't; Notre Dame is 1-2 and facing one of the toughest schedules in the country.

The conferences that formed the BCS, meanwhile, are experiencing the same kind of political and public-relations assault that staggered the ACC's plans to expand to 12 teams this summer. The ACC initially had hoped to add Miami, Boston College and Syracuse, but took Miami and Virginia Tech as a compromise to appease surprisingly staunch Virginia.

In the past month, Congress has held antitrust hearings about the BCS, while presidents and chancellors in non-BCS conferences have complained loudly about the inequality of a system that will parcel out $112 million of the BCS's projected $118 million this season to the 63 BCS schools -- leaving $6 million for the other 54 in Division I-A.

Representatives from BCS and non-BCS schools met Sept. 8 in Chicago to discuss the situation, with another meeting set for Nov. 16 in New Orleans. The resistance to the BCS could jeopardize its renewal after the agreement expires in 2005, jeopardizing the profits Notre Dame has received from its periodic appearances in BCS bowls.

Although ACC officials remain pessimistic that Notre Dame will become a member, the odds rise with each loss Notre Dame suffers on the football field, and with each step the BCS takes toward evolution or even eradication.

Even with those parameters, Heisler said Notre Dame is comfortable -- and even better off -- as a football independent at the moment.

"But," he said, "I can't tell you what will happen 10 years from now."

-- GREGG DOYEL: [email protected]. --

 

Where is all the uproar as the Big East goes in and strips Conference USA of 4 of it's strongest members?

 

darn tootin.

 

Yeah, the good Christian thing to do would be to turn the other cheek as the ACC stones them to death. They know not what they do.

Also, UConn becomes a full time football member in 2004.

 

Both parties deny any conversation went on. Doyle is being sited as the guy who broke this "false" story. Now he is on the radio here in Charlotte as a guest on Primetime. I hope he gets ripped on the Whiner Line.