American Athletic Conference expands to 14 teams for football, at the side of six Conference USA packages
The American Athletic Conference on Thursday announced that six modern packages will join the league, rising it to 15 members overall with 14 football-playing companions. Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA — all most as much as date members of Conference USA — sent in applications to hitch the AAC which dangle formally been well-liked by the conference’s 9 final packages.
“On behalf of the American Athletic Conference presidents, I gaze forward to years of wholesome competition with our six modern members,” mentioned Michael Fitts, Tulane president and AAC Board of Directors chairman. “I am assured that now we dangle no longer simplest added very most appealing establishments that piece our collective ambition for nationwide success, but now we dangle performed so in a deliberate and luminous methodology that might make contributions to the long-duration of time scheme forward for the conference.”
Despite the fact that a formal initiate date is no longer yet recognized for the six modern packages, the hope is they’re going to all initiate competing in the AAC on the initiate of the 2023 season, sources expose CBS Sports activities’ Matt Norlander.
“There is a ton of shifting capabilities. So noteworthy has to attain with when the three departing colleges leave,” a offer prompt Norlander.
Cincinnati, Houston and UCF are all leaving the AAC for the Expansive 12 at a yet-to-be-determined date. The Expansive 12, meanwhile, is doubtful regarding the departure timeline of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC, although the league publicly mentioned that it expects these teams to remain with the conference for their rotund phrases thru the 2024 season.
UAB and FAU dangle captured the closing four Conference USA championships, while UTSA entered the AP High 25 for the important time in program history in Week 8. North Texas won 9 games in 2017 and 2018, while Rice won the conference in 2013. Charlotte simplest began FBS football in 2015 and has a 13-12 document in three seasons below coach Will Healy.
The AAC’s pass provides the league a exact foothold in Texas with North Texas, Rice and UTSA joining SMU to give the league four establishments in the Lone Superstar Recount. The pass also doubles down on expansion into important markets, at the side of Charlotte, San Antonio, Birmingham and Houston. Present colleges, meanwhile, take a seat in Dallas, Memphis, Tulsa, Tampa and Original Orleans.
Getting to 14 teams provides the league some buffer in case of additional realignment.
“We attain are wanting to come all over again to either 10 or 12 [schools],” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco prompt the Orlando Sentinel in September. “We have some moral candidates, and we’re simplest facing candidates who dangle approached us — who dangle expressed an ardour in us. Or no longer it’s proceeding, and I’m moderately assured we will cease up as a exact conference and our draw is to be even stronger than earlier than.”
Losing its three high establishments to the Expansive 12 makes it unlikely that the modern AAC will match the present $7 million payout the league provides every program annual from tv rights, this no topic at the side of six modern members. On the replacement hand, whatever sum the modern members are paid will be a important step up from the roughly $500,000 they obtained from Conference USA.
The six incoming members are no longer expected to receive a rotund piece of media earnings — on the least firstly, so much of sources prompt CBS Sports activities’ Dennis Dodd. That played into the present members’ dedication to build bigger by six: Those 9 colleges wants so that you just might maybe get as noteworthy as their media earnings as probably.
Aresco would no longer divulge at once on media rights.
“As we bring colleges in, we desire colleges to if truth be told feel address they’re fully built-in into the conference,” Aresco mentioned a Thursday teleconference asserting the expansion. “I’m no longer going to score into specifics.”
Strikes by Cincinnati, Houston and UCF kicked off a important realignment shift in some unspecified time in the future of the Community of 5 ranks. The AAC reportedly courted four colleges from the Mountain West — Air Force, Boise Recount, Colorado Recount and San Diego Recount — but all in a roundabout scheme determined to face pat. MWC commissioner Craig Thompson mentioned this week that the conference does no longer conception to build bigger and can also merely dwell at 12 members.
Standing by is no longer the M.O. for numerous Community of 5 conferences, nonetheless. The Solar Belt is in the center of exploring expansion, reportedly focused on Southern Miss, Marshall and Unparalleled Dominion from Conference USA, at the side of FCS James Madison. On the replacement hand, Conference USA has also focused James Madison. Ought to the Dukes opt to hitch C-USA, sources expose CBS Sports activities’ Dennis Dodd that Marshall and Unparalleled Dominion would seemingly defend.