It would have consisted of five former members of the Pacific Coast Conference (Washington, California, USC, UCLA and Stanford), the three largest service academies (Army, Navy, and Air Force), and four eastern universities (Notre Dame, Pitt, Penn State, Syracuse).
The booklet outlined Raycom's plan to make the Metro competitive with the major conferences of the day (chiefly the SEC, ACC, Southwest, Big Eight, Big Ten, and Pac-10), which was based on adding new members that were desirable to the Metro in terms of everything from tapping new television markets and increasing the conference's footprint to preserving regional rivalries and exhibiting "institutional compatibility".
The eight teams named as targets in the booklet were Boston College, East Carolina, Miami, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, and West Virginia, and Raycom's plan was so intriguing to them that the presidents and athletic directors from all eight met with their Metro Conference counterparts in Dallas in the spring of 1990 to discuss the possibility of creating such a 16-team conference.
[5] The Metro Conference never achieved the substantial expansion outlined by the booklet; in 1991, Florida State joined the ACC, South Carolina moved into the SEC, and Boston College, Miami, Pitt, Syracuse, and Virginia Tech began playing football in the Big East.
According to former Louisville athletic director Bill Olsen, much of the move toward superconferences that has occurred since 2010 is reminiscent of the Metro Conference's plans and ambitions.
[5] The Metro itself ultimately dissolved in 1995, when its remnants joined a number of former members of the Great Midwest to form the football-sponsoring Conference USA (C-USA).
That same year, Notre Dame reached its own television deal with NBC instead of continuing its participation in the College Football Association's contract with CBS.
[8] South Carolina, on the other hand, joined the SEC in 1991 along with Arkansas, giving it an unprecedented 12 members and the ability to play a football championship game.
Following the example of the SEC, the Big 12 established two divisions of six teams and its own football championship game, becoming the second Automatic Qualifying (AQ) conference to do so.
At that time, the SWC was preparing to disband, and the College Football Association, which had loosely controlled TV rights for all Division I-A (now FBS) conferences except the Big Ten and Pac-10, was disintegrating.
Shortly thereafter, the presidents of Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Utah, and Wyoming met at Denver International Airport and agreed to break from the WAC and form a new league.
They invited New Mexico, San Diego State, and UNLV to join them, and this group of eight broke away to form the Mountain West Conference, which began play in the 1999–2000 school year.
[15] In May 2003, the ACC presidents voted in favor of expanding from nine to 12 members, initially engaging Boston College, Miami, and Syracuse in membership talks.
In June, the ACC extended formal membership invitations to Miami and Virginia Tech, both of whom accepted and officially joined the conference the next month.
[17] According to Bleacher Report writer Chuck Platt, the 2005 realignment accentuated and exacerbated the already-existing tensions between the "football" and "non-football" schools in the Big East, ultimately contributing to the demise of the conference.
[45] There remained speculation regarding the timing of the change until March 12, 2013, when it was announced that the Big East would allow Notre Dame to leave for the ACC after the 2012–13 academic year.
[47] In mid-November 2012, however, the landscape had changed, as ESPN reported that Maryland, a charter member of the ACC, was in "serious negotiations" to join the Big Ten.
[52] In response, the ACC voted to accept Louisville as its 14th full member on November 28, 2012, a move that took effect in 2014 when Maryland left the conference.
Media attention focused on remarks interpreted as slurs against Catholics and Notre Dame, plus digs at the Southeastern Conference, former Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema, and the universities of Cincinnati, Kentucky, and Louisville.
"[54] In July 2021, multiple media reports indicated that Big 12 mainstays Oklahoma and Texas had approached the SEC regarding a potential move to that conference.
In late June 2022, multiple media outlets began to report rumors that UCLA and USC were considering moving to the Big Ten from the Pac-12.