The Cincinnati Bearcats, Houston Cougars, and UCF Knights have each reached a deal to depart the American Athletic Conference and join the Big 12 in 2023, it was officially announced on Friday.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF’s membership in The American will be terminated effective July 1, 2023, allowing all three schools to join the Big 12 Conference at that time.
“I would like to thank UCF President Alexander Cartwright, Cincinnati President Neville Pinto and Houston President Renu Khator – as well as Tulane President Michael Fitts, who is chair of our Board of Directors – for their efforts and leadership to arrive at a sensible resolution to the three schools’ departure from the conference,” American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco. “All three institutions enjoyed tremendous success under the American Athletic Conference banner, and all three were instrumental in taking the conference to great heights, both athletically and academically. We wish them the best and look forward to having them compete in our conference in 2022-23.”
Back in September 2021, the Big 12 voted to invite all three schools to join the conference. An invitation to the BYU Cougars, a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Independent, was also extended and accepted. As an Independent, the Cougars were not restrained by any conference bylaws.
“It has been a privilege for our universities to compete at the highest level in the American Athletic Conference where our programs have grown and flourished, both athletically and academically,” said UCF President Alexander Cartwright, Cincinnati President Neville Pinto, and Houston President Renu Khator in a joint statement. “To be part of The American’s climb to national prominence in recent years is something we’ll always look back on with great pride. We are especially grateful to Commissioner Aresco and his staff for their efforts during this process and look forward to an outstanding year of competition in 2022-23.”
With the addition of four teams, the Big 12 Conference will have 14 football-playing members during the 2023 and 2024 seasons until the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns depart for the SEC in 2025. Unless, however, Oklahoma and Texas manage to negotiate an early exit.
The American will be down to eight teams in 2023. However, six schools from Conference USA — Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA — have already accepted invitations to join The American and could leave early to join for the 2023 season.
UTSA & Charlotte have already announced they are leaving C-USA fur the American in 2023.
Not before this article was published though.
But you could update Kevin. UAB has announced they are moving in 2023 too.
I’m not going to add C-USA teams to this post. I’ll do a separate C-USA post.
When Texas and Oklahoma depart for the SEC, Kanas and West Virginia leave for greener pastures and the subsequent below expectations Big 12 media rights deal is finalized; the Autonomous 4 (Big 10, SEC, ACC and the PAC 12) will be born and this conference will become the first recognized member of the Group of 6.
The Big 12 already has autonomous status. This distinction cannot be taken away, regardless of who leaves. If you want to divide the power 5 it would be the big 2 (SEC and Big Ten) and everybody else (ACC, Pac-12, Big 12).
There is NO such guaranteed status. The terms Power-5 and Group-of-5 come out revenue generation. After the departure of Texas and Oklahoma the Big 12’s ability to generate TV revenue will take a HUGE hit.
What do you think drove them, after an extensive (and expensive) search looking for 2 new members to reach 12 members; a search that included all four of their recently selected new membership candidates: they just announced, “Nevermind”
ans: They would have lost money. They will still lose money.
That aged poorly.
If the Big 12 likes being at 14 they just might add more schools in 2025 if Oklahoma and Texas have to stay until then
Memphis and Boise I hope. I’m sure you have different schools, maybe Colorado Schools of Mines and Utah Tech.
It would probably be Memphis and SMU.
why will teams joins other conferences
I think the Big 12 is in line for what could be the most generous media rights deal of all P5 leagues.
CBS, Turner, and NBC should replace Fox (this one because of Fox News) and ESPN/ABC as partners. Now that ESPN’s getting complete control of the SEC, including games on ABC, they could stand to lose at least one P5 league, there’s the possibility that the Big Ten will leave ESPN too.
CBS and NBC would share the OTA portion of the package, Paramount Network, TBS/TNT/TruTV, and USA airing the cable portion, and streaming rights shared by Paramount+, Peacock Premium, and HBOmax. The new deal would give huge financial incentives to the Big 12 add members beyond those who will still be in the conference beyond 2025. Those new members could very well be Boise State, Memphis, SMU, South Florida, Temple, and Tulane.
The Big 12 can adopt a 7-game schedule, abolishing formal division standings but nevertheless creating 3 groups of opponents who would face each other annually:
Baylor, Houston, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech, Tulane
Boise State, BYU, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State
Cincinnati, Memphis, South Florida, Temple, UCF, West Virginia
The other two games on each team’s conference schedule would be rotating opponents.
Combining with my proposal for the SEC to go to 7 conference games with three permanent and four rotating opponents, this could set up the preservation of Bedlam as a non-conference game.
When Texas and Oklahoma depart for the SEC, the TV revenue for whatever constitutes the Big 12 is estimated to drop by 50%. Just except it and move on.
You don’t get it Sloane. CBS is desperate to remain relevant in the CFB broadcasting world upon losing the SEC. The Big 12, and possibly the Big Ten, could help in that regard. So they will pay anything to televise Big 12 football if the conference seeks to end its relationships with Fox and ESPN. Especially if the Big Ten doesn’t end up on the network.
NBC has also been consistently frustrated with Notre Dame not winning a title since 1988, three years before the network began airing their home games. And Turner had a past relationship with the Big 12. NBC of course is also interested in the Big Ten.
When CBS announced the end of their partnership with the SEC, I wanted NBC to pick up the OTA portion, given ND’s title drought and the fact that NBC having the conference with the most national titles in the 21st century would look very good. That didn’t pan out either.
Furthermore it is possible that CBS affiliates within the SEC footprint will depart the network for ABC come 2024 in order to continue televising SEC football, not unlike the exodus of CBS affiliates to Fox nearly 30 years ago to continue televising the NFL’s NFC, with many of the CBS affiliates joining Fox in that era being located in NFC markets, including DFW, home of the most valuable sports team, the Cowboys.
Z-man why are you so stuck on dropping to 7 conference games? You do not seem to get it!
It’s not going to happen!!!!!
The Big 12 media rights will only be worth HALF of what they are currently worth! And that will decay further if any of the other eight remnant schools decide to leave. The ‘new’ Big 12 will not be worth much more than the MWC. The expectations CBS replacing the SEC with this ‘new’ Big 12, would be similar to those had they decided to replace Desi Arnaz with Xavier Cugat when Lucy and Desi divorced.
For Houston, Cincinnati and UCF the ‘new’ Big 12 media deal will be an up-grade. For the remnant membership it will be an unsustainable financial haircut. Hence, they will (or attempt to) flee to more lucrative pastures.
Let Texas and Oklahoma leave in 2023. Charge them an exit fee of 200 million each.
Oklahoma can’t afford that much less the $80 million, reportedly.
Well now that it’s official that all four teams will be in the conference in ‘23 that should make for a fun conference to watch with or without UT and OU.
But not necessarily a profitable one
If people watch it, the profits will come
I agree with Raider4life.
“If people watch it, the profits will come.”
To paraphrase & slightly change the LIne from the Film “Field of Dreams”.
“If you build it (a Winner), They (Fans, Viewer Numbers, Media Contracts) will come.”
Very shortly after and you’ve edited in the past.
I’m not going to add C-USA teams to this post. I’ll do a separate C-USA post.
All these Financials are from Brett Mcmurphy @ The Action Network, Sam Khan Jr @ The Athletic.
18 Million $$ per School to depart the AAC after 21 Months instead of 27 Months. 14 Years of Debt for an Athletics transfer of Membership.
That Money isn’t coming from the A.D., FB Coaches, BB Coaches Salaries & Athletic Department Budget. These People are immune from the Consequences of their mishandling, wasteful indebtedness, cavalier attitude toward Spending other People’s Labor ( We all know this Labor is translated into $$ so it can be exchanged through an easy medium.) The Taxpayers who pay all these Taxes in Ohio, Texas & Florida, which are then appropriated by the State House in each State, because that’s what State run Universities do, they go to their State Legislature for funding, are put into future Debt. Current & future Students who go into Debt with Student Loans for Tuition / Room & Board have the Burden of 14 Years of University Debt added to their Loads.
54 Million over 14 Years.
When UCinncinati, UCF, UHouston had joined the Big 12 in January of 2024: 30 Million over 4 Years is much less risky, has a tighter Window, making it more sound Financially.
An empirical Example: a lot changes in 2 Years. The Pandemic Medical, Financial, Mental, Social Human Disaster radically affected All Autonomous 5 Conferences Plans. The Nonautonomous 5 Conferences were severely affected by it.
For the annual operating financial budgets of the 3 state universities moving from the AAC to the Big 12, slightly over ~20% for each is state (taxpayer) funded. Moreover, these operating budgets are in the billions while their athletic budgets are in the tens of millions. That’s two orders (100th) of magnitude below that of the general budget. You have chosen to exaggerate the financial weight of this move upon their general budgets and mischaracterized their choice to build out of their athletic departments as, ‘mishandled, wasteful… and cavalier.’ Have you not noticed the amount of AD’s, head football and men’s basketball coaches that are replaced every year due to the potential loss of revenue for the university from their failures? Is that not a paying the price for the lack of success? This that not reflective of them being held responsible?
As well, labor is not money, nor is it fungible. It is the amount of effort needed to produce goods and services. Just because something costs money, does not mean it is money. Most Bolsheviks make this mistake.
In addition, while the pandemic reduced athletic revenues during the calendar year of 2020, these resources have rebounded nicely for the calendar year of 2021 and onward. The student’s burdens during this time, was addressed by a $15 billion federal relief fund (HEERF).
In conclusion, for these three schools and BYU, the move to the Big 12 will be, at least short-term, profitable, however it will not be for the other eight members. They will scramble elsewhere. That is the true miscalculation. There will be only 4 Autonomous conferences going forward – the Big 12 will not be one of them.
Sloane, you should get into the stock market since you’re so good at predicting the future. Seriously, you should.
Sloane,
My end arguments are not “to be proven right” or “to explain Trust Five Schools Athletic Departments & Conference Associations as exclusively determined by their Yearly Media, Advertising & Sponsorship Total Payouts”, none of the Autonomous Conferences has a corner on the unknown social, financial, physical Future.
Financial Profits are very important to Trust Five Conference Schools. Your assertion, in self Mandated, self Proclaimed, self supreme Emperor of Knowledge, & future SEC, B10, P12, ACC, little 12, Contracts, Associations, Goals, Motivation, Plans, Tactics & Strategies isn’t true. No matter how many times you’ve posted what “will happen”.
To your Points about (University) “…operating budgets are in the billions while their athletic budgets are in the tens of millions.” & ” The student’s burdens during this time, was addressed by a 15 billion federal relief fund (HEERF).” “Is that not reflective of them being held responsible?’
Every State University’s operating Budget & Athletic Budget is intertwined & a high athletic Budget Inflates general budget Costs in indirect (hidden) & direct ways.
15 Billion in “federal relief fund (HEERF).” is not cash Assets. It is a “federal future credit Obligation (HEERF). It is a 15 Billion Dollar future tax which is Inflated in Value. At recent inflation Rates, fill in the current Rate ____ (2021 – ? ), it is worth so much less than the Figure “15 Billion” is supposed to seem like. I’ll use “…head football… coaches that are replaced every year…” in Trust Five Conferences as my example.
There are many Articles You may choose yourself. My example is from “Sportsnaut.com . May 19, 2022 “Highest-paid college football coaches 2022: Ryan Day contract provides huge raise”, After the 1st 2 Pictures, highest paid coaches fired in 2021: It then lists the 3. Patterson, Mullen, Orgeron. When you scroll to the section detailing LSU’s buyout of Orgeron it’s 17 Million… A 5 Million buyout or a 17 Million buyout is unjustifiable “…mishandling, wasteful indebtedness, cavalier attitude toward spending other people’s Labor”…spending of a State University’s general operating & athletic Budget. There are many other current Models of this.
Also I don’t mind You indirectly calling me ” Most Bolsheviks make this mistake.”
As a capitalist American, my labor has always resulted in a Monetary reward. if I was awarded food & drink instead of Cash, or a new Jacket, My Parents, Friends, an Employer had to have Money to purchase those Things.
Your absolute Position that your Views are definitely correct is debatable / questionable.
Hey Kevin, just curious if the title picture is a paid advertisement for John Morrell meats?
Negative
Lol