Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 7, 1990 TAG: 9006070191
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"We would want to look at what the Metro has before we'd do anything else," said Sliger, who denied that the Seminoles have been invited to join the SEC.
The Metro's hopes for expansion and football are on hold until the league receives financial and academic data being compiled by Raycom Sports and Entertainment, expected near the end of July. Sliger said it is unlikely the Florida State would accept another conference's offer before the Metro's joint committee meets again and forwards a recommendation to the league's presidents.
Sliger discounted published reports of the SEC's invitation and 90-day deadline, but he said an invitation may be forthcoming. Sliger said he talked last week with SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer and also has talked to Mississippi president Gerald Turner about the SEC's interest in the Tallahassee, Fla., school.
"The fact that Roy didn't contact some other schools indicates we would be No. 1 in this area," Sliger said when asked if Florida State was the SEC's top choice for expansion. "I'm not sure the SEC's going to expand. I'm not convinced [the SEC] has made that decision. If they make that decision, then we would get an offer."
Metro Conference Commissioner Ralph McFillen could not be reached for comment. A Metro source said McFillen was to travel to Tallahassee today, apparently to discuss Florida State's situation with Sliger.
Sliger did not seem concerned about how Florida State's action might affect the Metro's expansion and football prospects because, he said, the league didn't start out as a football conference. Florida State repeatedly has balked at playing football with the existing eight Metro members, but Sliger said Florida State would be interested if the Metro expanded "to include Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virginia and Miami." The Hurricanes, he said, would be the crucial Metro addition as far as Florida State is concerned.
"I don't think we would go in without Miami being in," he said. "I'm not saying we'd go in if Miami did go in."
At the SEC's spring meetings in Destin, Fla., in May, the presidents of the league schools voted unanimously to explore the possibility of expanding the league composed of Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi State, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Florida.
There hasn't been a membership change in the league since Tulane left in 1966. Assistant commissioner Brad Davis said expansion would have to be approved by at least eight of the 10 presidents, and he said the league set no timetable for a vote on expansion and does not have a presidents' meeting scheduled.
Davis said a long-range planning committee was formed at the 1989 SEC spring meetings to study expansion, and that the league's communications office gathered financial and marketing data on schools in which the SEC was interested - similar to the Metro's Raycom study. The SEC reportedly is most interested in Southwest Conference member Arkansas, independent Miami and Metro member South Carolina.
Davis said his office's report was presented to league officials in Destin two weeks ago.
At least one Metro athletic director, Cincinnati's Rick Taylor, said he believes Florida State would join the SEC if invited. Sliger said the school's athletic committee would vote on any invitation but that the final decision would be his. But, he said, he is not leaning one way or the other.
"There are a lot of things I don't know," he said.
Among them is whether Florida State would be better off financially in the SEC than it is as a football independent and a member of the Metro, which does not share revenue. The SEC released revenue-sharing figures at its spring meetings that showed each school would receive between $1.21 million and $1.93 million of the $16.3 million pot of conference money. That money came from football telecasts ($8.1 million), bowls ($4.1 million), basketball telecasts ($2.6 million), the SEC basketball tournament ($800,000) and the NCAA Tournament ($700,000).
This year, Florida State will make $1.8 million from football telecasts, including CFA money; $286,000 in basketball, mostly from its NCAA Tournament appearance in 1989; and $2.5 million from the Fiesta Bowl, played Jan. 1, 1990.
Sliger said membership in the SEC would help the Seminoles fill their 63,000-seat football stadium, which is to be expanded by 10,000 seats.
"I do not think we will fill that 73,000-seat stadium five years from now if we aren't a member of the SEC," Sliger said.
The down side of joining the SEC, Sliger said, is the same thorn that has the Seminoles iffy about Metro expansion and football - revenue sharing. That has some Seminole fans worried, too.
by CNB