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AAC formally announces addition of six new members

photos -jpgby: Ashton Pollard10/21/21ashtonpollard7
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The American Athletic Conference is officially adding six new members.

Following a meeting between commissioner Mike Aresco and the AAC presidents, the conference announced Thursday morning they will be adding Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA.

“I am extremely pleased to welcome these six outstanding universities to the American Athletic Conference,” Aresco said in a statement. “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.”

The six schools are currently members of Conference USA. It has yet to be formalized when the schools will make the move. The timeline will be contingent upon the other schools moving conferences, namely Texas and Oklahoma.

The decision to pillage C-USA occurred after interest in the Mountain West’s Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State fell through.

These schools have had recent success on the football field, and perhaps no program has had a better year than UTSA. In addition to receiving the invite to join the American, they are currently 7-0 and ranked for the first time in program history.

Adding schools in major television markets is often a priority in conference realignment, and the American now has schools in four of the 10 biggest Nielsen media markets in the country.

The additions are expected to bring in over $2 million in television contract money to start. The amount will increase in future years, per Yahoo’s Pete Thamel. The eight schools with football slated to stay in the AAC make around $7 million annually from the contract. That is expected to remain the same under the current deal.

Realignment dominoes continue to fall

The AAC is now the third conference to add new members in recent months, and the reshuffling is expected to continue.

The newest wave of conference realignment was started by Texas and Oklahoma’s decision to move to the SEC no later than 2025. With their departure from the Big 12, commissioner Bob Bowlsby moved to add BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF.

Obviously, the Big 12’s addition left the AAC with three fewer schools, sparking Thursday’s addition.

The Sun Belt is seen as the most likely conference to add schools next. Southern Miss and Marshall are reportedly the top choices. Other options include Old Dominion, Liberty and FCS James Madison.