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After five years, American Athletic Conference finds...
When Mike Aresco looks back at the past five-plus years, he points to any one thing that could have blown the whole plan up.
As the conference realignment dust settled in late 2012, seven non-FBS schools in the Big East left the league and took the name with them. Aresco, as commissioner, had a group of 10 FBS schools and no identity. The American Athletic Conference was formed, but how long was it really going to last?
“I was always optimistic that if we could stay together — which was a big if — that we would have a good future,” Aresco told The Athletic at AAC meetings in Dallas in late May. “We had to rebrand, find a new name, a new logo. A lot of that was very difficult. To go through that, any little thing that flares up could destroy the conference.”
For that period of time, it seemed that college sports was on the brink of a tectonic shift. Would the Big 12 be ripped apart? Would the top conferences leave the NCAA? Would the new AAC get torn up when Rutgers and Louisville left and Boise State backed out of an agreement to join?
With five years in the books, the waters have calmed, and the AAC has reached a defining moment.
It has proved to be the most successful Group of 5 conference, especially in football, going so far as to brand itself as a “Power 6” conference. But its television contracts expire after the 2019-20 academic year, and negotiations for a new deal are set to begin soon. Television plans were a major topic at the recent conference meetings.
If the league wants to reach its goal of becoming a major autonomous conference, it needs a much better broadcast deal, and everyone involved knows it — especially Aresco, who is a former ESPN and CBS executive.
When Mike Aresco looks back at the past five-plus years, he points to any one thing that could have blown the whole plan up.
As the conference realignment dust settled in late 2012, seven non-FBS schools in the Big East left the league and took the name with them. Aresco, as commissioner, had a group of 10 FBS schools and no identity. The American Athletic Conference was formed, but how long was it really going to last?
“I was always optimistic that if we could stay together — which was a big if — that we would have a good future,” Aresco told The Athletic at AAC meetings in Dallas in late May. “We had to rebrand, find a new name, a new logo. A lot of that was very difficult. To go through that, any little thing that flares up could destroy the conference.”
For that period of time, it seemed that college sports was on the brink of a tectonic shift. Would the Big 12 be ripped apart? Would the top conferences leave the NCAA? Would the new AAC get torn up when Rutgers and Louisville left and Boise State backed out of an agreement to join?
With five years in the books, the waters have calmed, and the AAC has reached a defining moment.
It has proved to be the most successful Group of 5 conference, especially in football, going so far as to brand itself as a “Power 6” conference. But its television contracts expire after the 2019-20 academic year, and negotiations for a new deal are set to begin soon. Television plans were a major topic at the recent conference meetings.
If the league wants to reach its goal of becoming a major autonomous conference, it needs a much better broadcast deal, and everyone involved knows it — especially Aresco, who is a former ESPN and CBS executive.
