It’s Official: Syracuse Will Join the ACC in 2013
The Big East and Syracuse announced today that they have reached an agreement on Syracuse’s departure from the Big East. On July 1, 2013, Syracuse will end its membership in the Big East and be free to join the ACC.
The announcement states that “In addition to other consideration, Syracuse will make a total cash payment to the BIG EAST of $7.5 million.” This amounts to only $2.5 million more than the exit fee at the time Syracuse announced its departure. It is also far less than what West Virginia paid to leave the Big East, although that is not surprising, given the substantially different departure timetables of the two departures.
Pittsburgh has not yet announced their departure date from the Big East. The university “will not be commenting on the news out of Syracuse, or on any developments in Pitt’s status in the Big East at this time,” according to a spokesperson (according to the Post-Standard report).
Do we THINK there’s a chance this will be Pitt’s last season? Do you think BE-Pitt will settle now? oh I hope so!
I expect that they’ll reach an agreement with Pitt to leave early as well. If they don’t, then the Big East would have 13 teams in 2013 (as well as the ACC), and that really doesn’t benefit anyone.
Pitt will definitely be out for 2013. I just think they’ve got to wrap up some legal matters. Syracuse obviously benefited from playing cool and just negotiating in good faith. Pitt, on the other hand, was probably hurt by their lawsuit. Assuming once it’s thrown out by Pitt, they’ll be able to negotiate for a similar exit time and fee.
John, I hope so. The season hasn’t even started and I am so sick of the Big East already!