Miami may finalize move to ACC today

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ESPN.com news services

North Carolina State athletic director Lee Fowler and Florida State athletic director Dave Hart will meet Friday with Miami president Donna Shalala to possibly finalize the Hurricanes' move to the ACC, a source close to the process in Miami told ESPN.com.

The source said Fowler and Hart met with Miami coaches and administrators Thursday night at a dinner. However, the conversation was casual and didn't include detailed analysis of Miami's potential move from the Big East to the ACC. Shalala did not attend the dinner.

"It looks like it's a done deal,'' the source said. "Once these campus visits are over, this will move quickly.''

Fowler and Hart will look at Miami's facilities Friday morning. But even that appears to be a formality, considering Hart has visited Miami many times with his Florida State teams.

The source said the ACC is expected to send different athletic directors to meetings at Syracuse and Boston College next week. Since ACC school presidents are not on these visits, the consensus is that all negotiating has already been done.

"I don't know what could stop it,'' the source said. "No one has said this is over and done and the people making the campus visits don't have the power to pull it off. But nothing has been thrown out there that appears to be slowing it down from our campus.''

Multiple sources have said that Miami, Syracuse and Boston College are expected to give a final decision on the expansion invitation the week of June 9.

Hart and Fowler were joined by ACC commissioner John Swofford earlier Thursday when the visit began Thursday. Miami has scheduled a news conference for Friday afternoon to include Swofford and Hurricanes AD Paul Dee.

The site visits are mandatory based on ACC bylaws, and although they are considered mere formalities, they could be critical steps in the conference's bid to lure three of the Big East's top programs.

The delegation was expected to tour the Orange Bowl as well as Miami's on-campus facilities that include a new $48 million basketball arena and a workout facility that was part of a $4.5 million renovation in 2001.

In meeting with Shalala and Dee, ACC officials are expected to respond to recent overtures from the Big East.

Rutgers spokesman John Wooding confirmed that the Big East guaranteed Miami at least $9 million annually for the next five years if the Hurricanes remain in the conference.

The offer was made to Dee in a letter dated May 27 and written by Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese with the approval of the conference's presidents and athletic directors, including those from Boston College and Syracuse.

The ACC voted May 16 to extend invitations to Miami, Boston College and Syracuse to begin formal discussions on joining the nine-team league and creating a 12-team superconference that would add a lucrative title game.

The ACC paid its nine schools a record $9.7 million in 2001-02. Miami reportedly earned $9.3 million, but $4 million of that came from its Bowl Championship Series appearance in the Rose Bowl. Had the Hurricanes not played in a BCS game, they would have made about $1.7 million less.

By bringing in three new teams, the ACC would have to guarantee it would take in an extra $29.1 million to stay even. TV deals and the BCS are up for renegotiation after the 2005-06 season, and with a slowing economy, there are no guarantees a bigger league will generate more money.

Nonetheless, Miami is weighing the move, and the rest of the country is waiting.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Shalala, Boston College president William Leahy and Syracuse chancellor Kenneth Shaw, nine U.S. senators implored the universities not to join the ACC.

"It was not too long ago that colleges and universities espoused loyalty, leadership and sportsmanship as the qualities that made intercollegiate athletics great,'' the senators wrote. "Now those very virtues find themselves under assault, not by the corrosive effects of scandal at the student-athlete level, but rather by the decisions of individuals in leadership positions. To us, that is the greatest shame of this entire affair.''

The letter was signed by Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, John Warner and George Allen of Virginia, Robert Byrd and John Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

The departure of the three universities to the ACC, the senators said, would have "a devastating impact'' on the Big East's remaining schools and would hurt women's athletics by "stifling years of progress.''

Information from ESPN.com senior writer Andy Katz and The Associated Press was used in this report.