It’s not as big of a deal as some think and not nothing like others think. It’s not a lateral move but it’s pretty damn close. If we joined the AAC as it currently is it would be a big deal. With the schools leaving it’s a pretty shitty conf, slightly better than where we are but it’s not much of a needle mover to me.
There are some pluses but it’s not a huge step up. At least to me
I get that but any chance at moving up means schools had to leave. Im sure sincy and ucf are happy but they aren’t making quite the leap as if Texas and Oklahoma stayed. The point to me is we were very very close to being left in what remained of cusa. Instead we get an in state rival, a much better basketball league, a better tv package, more money - and most importantly if our dream is P5 we landed in the feeder league. I am almost certain Judy wouldn’t have landed that. She got thrown a life line from CUSA 3.0, aac wasn’t throwing those.
I get basketball is a disaster and I do think it’s been handled poorly. The extensions and current situation sucks. The only way I can wrap my head around it is he told Ron he had 4 yrs to fix it and the COVID yr isn’t counting. I don’t agree with that but I can understand it. I’m also not going to let basketball sour me on everything else.
Outside of basketball I’ve been pretty happy with just about everything else that is going on. Football bowl game, Covid and then we got out of the gate fast and collapsed and made changes. Baseball, fundraising, SM presence and more. We can be better but I’m happy.
I know many of y’all are fixated on the MP and if that’s a big concern of yours I can see some frustration there. I’m just not that worried about it.
Prestige wise - it will retain an advantage for a while because of its football performance - until such time as other league(s) supplant it as the expected participant in the Access Bowl every year.
But there are other ways it is a meaningful step up from CUSA:
Leadership. No comparison between CUSA Judy and Aresco.
Accessibility. The AAC TV contract is vastly superior to CUSA’s. All of our non traditional broadcast sports will also be moved to ESPN+. No more needing a planning chart and 5 subscriptions to follow our programs. Death to CUSA.TV. Our games in every sport are going to be accessible. And we will have a shot at getting some good TV slots if we can perform in money sports.
An in state, in conference rival in Football (and Hoops to a lesser degree). That football rivalry is the type of thing you build programs on. We need a primary rival in football. We will have one now.
I am not pretending like the AAC will hold the stature it did this past football season and in its best basketball seasons. But it is a step up. Also, it is the type of launch platform that we have desired since we got run out of CUSA 1.0. Look at the programs that have moved on. That could be us in a best case scenario. No more blaming the league if we can’t get shit done. It’s on us from this point forward.
The biggest deal about the conference move is the media deal. As far as the teams in the AAC go, we get ECU as a conference rival and Navy and Memphis move the needle just a bit. But you’re right, with no Cincy, UCF or Houston, it’s not quite what C-USA 1.0 was in basketball.
Can we at least get an estimated time line for expansion?
1-2 years
2-5 years
5+ years
Perhaps it depends on the success of next season and the ability to fill the stadium following Covid. But, give us something.
Imo it is 100% dependent on fund raising. Once the money needed is locked in construction begins. I am going with 1-2 based on how I’ve heard fund raising has gone this far.
For now. Let’s hope it stays that way. When we went to CUSA, it had a much better TV deal than it did 2 years after we joined.
If Big XII expands again and decides to take Memphis and USF, then we are just in CUSA again and I suspect the media deal will decline. Even if that happens, we would likely still have most of our stuff on ESPN+ and not have to deal with anything that resembles CUSATV at least.
clt says the AAC is #P6. big step up and we need to be ready
One thing I didn’t mention about being in the AAC that we have almost never talked about during our stay in CUSA 3.0 was the hatefest between CUSA and ESPN. Years ago, CUSA bid out their TV renewal to other broadcasters (before we rejoined), and snubbed ESPN. ESPN never forgot. While the performance on the field and the court may have warranted a decline in coverage, make no mistake, ESPN harbored a grudge (and wanted to send a message to the other G5 leagues to not step out of line), so they purposefully buried CUSA for years. It wasn’t just that the league wasn’t broadcast on their network, it was also left off of Sportscenter and sport specific shows like their nightly college basketball show that Jay Bilas used to host and of course College GameDay. It was almost as if the league didn’t exist and that is exactly what ESPN wanted.
Leadership changes, and time softened that treatment some, but the damage was done as CUSA slid into total irrelevancy in recent years.
We were not the cause of all of that animosity, but we suffered from it too. I am happy to be getting out of the refuse of that whole situation.
Even if it is just to rejoin an AAC that is a glorified CUSA 4.0 - if it doesn’t carry the stigma and ESPN animosity, it’s also a step up.
ESPN had a hand in who got added. Part of the conf goals were to maintain revenue. AAC and ESPN have been solid partners. I feel much better about the future of the TV deal that I did with CUSA.
For sure. Didn’t Aresco used to work for espn?
No more Facebook games, no more Stadium games, ABC/ESPN time slots. We play ECU every year in football, host basketball games with Memphis and Wichita St. host Navy in football (and road trips to Annapolis) . We’re also playing in a conference that has made the access bowl every year( which brings up better bowl selections), and is a multiple bid conference in basketball on the regular.
Just my opinion but I think you’re selling it a little short. I’d love it if three leaving were still there but it’s still a much better place than CUSA.
With the AAC losing the teams that they are losing and gaining the core of conference USA, is this really the step up that excites our fans base as much as it should, what if the next round of conference expansion takes place and Memphis and SMU are purged, the TV deal and conference leadership will be in a better place, but in the end we will just be fighting to get into the new Big 12, which is essentially the AAC 2.0, the best attribute for me is that we caught up to East Carolina in conference affiliation and now have an in state rival that our fan base can rally behind
We can play the what if game all day long but we can only control what we can control. Win on the field and court and things will play out accordingly. We are in the best position we could possibly be in right now. Time to win.
I mean I’d still rather be with memphis, smu, Wichita state, temple, and usf than the schools we left behind.
I don’t think a couple of those will be with us long personally, but might as well enjoy it while we can.
I think being in a conference with ECU alone would be an upgrade as far as initial fan interest is concerned. Performing well against them would be the next step.
If we get paid more, and all indications are we will and significantly (at least for us) then it is also an obvious upgrade.
I just feel it’s the “softest” conference change for us in history so far as far as wasting initial excitement.
For our viewing entertainment:
That’s great and all if you care about football. I wonder what their women’s lacrosse facility looks like? Probably not as nice as the one we are going to build!
I would rather be in a conference playing those teams as well, but Memphis and SMU are probably purged in the next round of conference realignment, and I am not that much more intrigued by playing Tulsa, Tulane, S.Florida, Temple, Navy and the core of conference USA, than I would be playing the new Sunbelt conference teams with Coastal, Marshall, and App St, but being in the AAC gives us a better opportunity to be purged into the Big 12 as they expand, and we have an in state rival in ECU to look forward to, but the move to the AAC excites me only to the degree that we are closer to moving up to a power conference and having an in state rival to play annually
