Six weeks after losing three teams to the Big 12 conference, the American Athletic Conference’s response is official. The league announced Thursday the additions of Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA, all coming from Conference USA.
The move expands the AAC to 14 football teams, including Navy, and 14 teams in basketball, including Wichita State.
“I am extremely pleased to welcome these six outstanding universities to the American Athletic Conference,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said in a release. “This is a strategic expansion that accomplishes a number of goals as we take the conference into its second decade. We are adding excellent institutions that are established in major cities and have invested in competing at the highest level.
“We have enhanced geographical concentration which will especially help the conference’s men’s and women’s basketball and Olympic sports teams. And we will continue to provide valuable inventory to our major media rights partner, ESPN, which will feature our members on the most prominent platforms in sports media. Additionally, we increase the value in live content options for CBS Sports, which features selected men’s basketball games on CBS Sports.”
It’s the end of a tumultuous road for the AAC over the past few months. When Texas and Oklahoma announced in January they would leave for the SEC, the AAC hoped it could pull in some other Big 12 teams and perhaps turn the Power 6 dream into a Power 5 reality. But when it became clear no other Power 5 league would take another Big 12 team, the remaining Big 12 teams stuck together and turned their sights toward expansion. The AAC, because of its success, became the target.
The Big 12 quickly identified and added Cincinnati, Houston and UCF from the AAC, along with independent BYU. Those three AAC schools will join the Big 12 in either 2023 or 2024, while BYU will join in 2023. The departure dates of Texas and Oklahoma have not been negotiated yet.
To make up for the losses, Aresco hoped to add two or four teams and turned west. Aresco said he only engaged with teams that showed interest, and the AAC had conversations with Mountain West schools Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State. Air Force and CSU in particular were more interested, as Boise State and SDSU have hopes for future Big 12 expansion. But in the end, the four Mountain West schools stayed put.
The idea of the AAC going even bigger with expansion came onto the table, with some in the league thinking the conference should add as many as eight teams. Keeping the Mountain West from expanding into Texas while expanding its own presence in the state was one thought behind the process.
UAB was always considered a favorite to join the league. The Blazers have won two of the past three C-USA championships and just opened a new stadium, among other recent investments since the program’s return from the dead. It’s also in a major college football market in Birmingham, with a growing school and academic presence.
In the other five schools, the AAC sees an opportunity for a greater presence in recruiting hotbeds like Texas and Florida. It also believes recent athletic investments (facilities and coaching salaries) are signs of potential for future growth.
With these additions, 12 of the future 14 AAC schools will be former C-USA members.
More realignment could be coming as well, with the Sun Belt potentially set to add more C-USA teams, as the realignment chain reaction continues.
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