American Athletic Conference Expansion
What’s Going On? The conference is losing Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF to the Big 12 next year, and it’s bringing aboard Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA from Conference USA in 2023.
Best Case Scenario: The remaining strong members – Memphis, SMU, and USF – are locked in for longer term deals, and it keeps on adding parts by going to the Mountain West, or anywhere else. More on that in a moment.
Worst Case Scenario: The Big 12 decides it wants to keep on going and steal Memphis and SMU, and someone figures out that USF is a massive school in a big media market.
Crazy Idea That Won’t Work, But … Go push the footprint by going after the Mountain West. At least give it a shot with Colorado State, Air Force, and Boise State.
What Will Probably Happen: The expansion talk likely stalls for a bit and the conference should be okay for now. Temple, Tulane, and USF make sense in a slew of ways – good-sized schools in good media markets – for other leagues, but the Power Five is going after the bigger fish.
Conference Expansion: What’s Going On?
ACC | AAC | Big Ten | Big 12 | C-USA | Ind
MAC | Mountain West | Pac-12 | SEC | Sun Belt