The University of Maryland's board of regents are meeting Monday morning to vote whether or not to join the Big Ten athletic conference. While the vote only needs a simple majority to pass (and evidently comes on the heels of expedition from University President Wallace D. Loh), many of the board members were reportedly not briefed on the situation as a whole:
The board members had not been formally briefed on the situation before the conference call with Loh. Multiple individuals with firsthand knowledge of the situation, who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions, remained unsure of how the Board of Regents would vote, only saying that, as one put it, members "have a lot of questions."
"Obviously there's a financial incentive, but we need to know what else is involved," one of those individuals said. "Is there any other reason besides money? What are the pros and cons? What does it mean to spread the size of your conference out? I don't want to sit down and say I've made up my mind until I've heard all the data."
Sounds like a solid way to conduct business that could include a reported $50 million dollar exit fee to leave the Atlantic Coast Conference and could have serious financial implications on the athletic department and university alike for years to come.