The University of Maryland is in serious negotiations to join the Big Ten Conference, sources told ESPN on Saturday.

If Maryland goes from the ACC to the Big Ten, Rutgers of the Big East is expected to follow suit. The addition of Maryland and Rutgers would give the Big Ten 14 members as the league gears toward negotiations on a new media rights deal when its first-tier rights expire in 2017.

No date has been set for a potential announcement, though it could come as soon as Monday.

Maryland president Wallace Loh has been handling the conversation with Big Ten officials, a source said.

One source told ESPN that Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson has informed key staffers that there are ongoing discussions.

One stumbling block for Maryland could be finances. Maryland's athletic department has recently dropped sports because of budget issues, and the ACC recently raised its exit fee to $50 million.

Maryland and Florida State were the only two of 12 schools that voted against a $50 million exit fee out of the ACC, but lost the vote. Loh was quoted in the Washington Post on Sept. 13 that he was against the hike from $20-50 million on "legal and philosophical" grounds. The Post reported that Loh said Maryland planned to be in the ACC for years to come.

A source told ESPN that the Big Ten has been itchy about further expansion since Notre Dame made its official move to the ACC two months ago in all sports other than football. The source said the Big Ten can justify Maryland and then possibly Rutgers since they are all contiguous states to the Big Ten footprint.

One source told ESPN that Loh and Anderson don't have ACC ties so there wouldn't be a strong emotional pull to stay with the conference. Loh is a former provost at Big Ten member Iowa.

However, the chancellor of the Maryland system, Brit Kirwan, has been on the Maryland campus for 30 years and has strong affiliation for being a charter member of the ACC, according to a source.

One source with Maryland ties said there is a strong affinity for the ACC and making the move to the Big Ten may not be a unanimous decision among the school's board of regents.

Big Ten officials did not respond to numerous requests seeking comment. ACC officials also did not respond to a request for comment. Maryland officials would not comment when asked after the Terps' football game on Saturday.

If these dominoes were to fall then Connecticut would emerge as the most likely candidate to fill Maryland's spot in the ACC. The ACC will be at 14 members in 2013-14 with the addition of the Big East's Pittsburgh and Syracuse and 15 in all sports except football when Notre Dame joins, which could be as early as fall 2013.

Rutgers' exit fee from the Big East would be less expensive. The buyout to leave the Big East is $10 million if the school provides 27 months' notice. However, the league has allowed West Virginia, Pitt and Syracuse to leave the league without honoring the 27-month requirement by paying a higher exit fee.

The Scarlet Knights would be the ninth member of the Big East to leave or announce they were leaving the league since 2004. Six of those defections have occurred in the past year -- Pitt, Syracuse and Notre Dame to the ACC; TCU and West Virginia to the Big 12 and Rutgers to the Big Ten.

The Scarlet Knights were charter members of the Big East's football conference, which began in 1991.

Maryland also was a charter member of the ACC, one of eight schools to start the league in 1953.

Both Maryland and Rutgers are members of the AAU (Association of American Universities), something vital to Big Ten presidents.

The addition of the two East Coast schools would dramatically stretch the Big Ten's footprint. With Maryland holding down the Beltway, Rutgers offering up the New York market and Penn State's strong eastern ties, the league has a solid anchor in the mid-Atlantic states.

Maryland and Rutgers also would make the nation's richest conference even wealthier. Last season, each Big Ten school received a record $24.6 million in shared revenue, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. One source said the success of the Big Ten Network is an intriguing factor for Maryland.

If the two schools join the Big Ten, it would reopen what many thought was a stable time in the conference realignment process. The Big Ten joins the SEC as a legitimate 14-team superconference, while the ACC drops to 13 football members and likely will pursue another all-sports member to get back to 14.

ACC commissioner John Swofford said at ACC media day and during the news conference when the Irish were added that the league wouldn't go beyond 14 football members and could easily exist with an odd number (15) in men's and women's basketball. But if a football member were to leave, the ACC would likely have to make a move.

Maryland, meanwhile, will become only the second school to leave the ACC. South Carolina was the other, leaving in 1971 to become an independent. The Gamecocks are now members of the SEC.

In the past few years, the nation's top five conferences -- SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC -- have added a total of 10 new members, causing a domino effect throughout the college landscape from coast to coast.

Dana O'Neil, Brett McMurphy and Andy Katz are all college sports reporters for ESPN.

I just miss the conferences being sensible little regional fiefdoms. All this shuffling around makes me want the whole damn thing to collapse under its own greed and bloat. You don't know who's doing what where anymore. I think the Calgary Flames are in the Big East for basketball now.

I catch maybe ten minutes of a bowl game around the holidays.

Quick, change the division names while you have a chance!

Not sure how substantiated the rumor is, but apparently GTech and UNC are talking with the BIg Ten too

I would guess quite unsubstantiated, but IF that were true, the ACC is making out like a bandit in this $$$ game. That would mean they just gained $150M in fees for doing....nothing, and oh, yeah, they just added Notre Dame. They could go add a couple of teams from the crumbling BigEast if they wanted to and be just fine with how things are going. And does UNC really want to leave the Duke and the rest of the ACC in basketball?


This move doesn't make sense for Maryland, IMO. They are already operating way in the red and now they have to spend $50M to go be a part of a TV contract that might get them back to operating without a deficit......10 years? Maybe more? And they will be a bottom feeder in the Big Ten just like they were a bottom feeder in he ACC. So they're not gaining anything are they?

It makes more sense for Rutgers - cheaper exit fee, crumbling Big East, etc.

It also strikes me as a little bit of a panic move by the Big Ten. But that's a different discussion.

This move doesn't make sense for Maryland, IMO. They are already operating way in the red and now they have to spend $50M to go be a part of a TV contract that might get them back to operating without a deficit......10 years? Maybe more? And they will be a bottom feeder in the Big Ten just like they were a bottom feeder in he ACC. So they're not gaining anything are they?

It makes more sense for Rutgers - cheaper exit fee, crumbling Big East, etc.

It also strikes me as a little bit of a panic move by the Big Ten. But that's a different discussion.

Supposedly Under Armour guy is paying their 50 million dollar fee.

Even if somebody else pays for Maryland's fee, I don't see how losing Maryland while adding Notre Dame, and gaining $50M in the process, is a bad thing for the ACC? That makes them more "stable" on the surface. Yes, there is the potential for schools like FSU and Clemson to jump to the SEC (as many rumors have said) - but what is in that for the SEC exactly?

This is all about money. Notre Dame brings in more money to any conference than Maryland ever will. Plus the ACC gets a huge head start in the $$ game with the exit fee.

They can survive without Maryland no doubt. It's what is happening in the future that may hurt the ACC.

Also, Notre Dame didn't join the ACC. They agreed to some games with the ACC in exchange for easy scheduling for sports that don't make any money.

The SEC stands to make significantly more money if the ACC is out of the picture. The ACC, while not as good as the SEC, does siphon off money from the SEC. Also, splitting the BCS pie 4 ways is better than splitting it 5 ways.

Except Notre Dame is keeping most of that money. The ACC gained 2 or 3 Notre Dame road games a year, with about one of those being ones they'd already have like Pitt, BC, Miami, FSU, Wake Forest.

Haha, we kicked Illinois out of our division. Take that Dr. K.

I wouldn't celebrate that if I were you.

Funny moment for me as the board was dead and I was forced to read the Illini boards on this very topic - a poster was very upset that we had 1 winnable FB game each year until someone pointed out that we only had 1 in the other division as well.

You're going to the wrong parts of Decatur.