American Conference (NCAA)
The American Conference, formerly the American Athletic Conference, and also known as simply the American, is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States, featuring 13 full member universities and 6 affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Member universities represent a range of private and public research universities of various enrollment sizes located primarily in urban metropolitan areas in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States.
The American's legal predecessor, the original Big East Conference, was considered one of the six collegiate power conferences of the Bowl Championship Series era in college football, and the American inherited that status in the BCS's final season. With the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the American became a "Group of Five" conference, which shared one automatic spot in the New Year's Six bowl games during the CFP's four-team era.
The league is the product of substantial turmoil in the former Big East during the 2010–14 conference realignment period. It is one of two conferences to emerge from the all-sports Big East in 2013. While the other successor, which does not sponsor football, purchased the Big East Conference name, the American inherited the former Big East's structure and is that conference's legal successor. However, both conferences claim 1979 as their founding date, and the same history up to 2013. The American Conference is headquartered in Irving, Texas and led by Commissioner Tim Pernetti, who replaced the retiring Mike Aresco on June 1, 2024.
History
The Big East
The Big East Conference was founded in 1979 as a basketball conference and included the colleges of Providence, St. John's, Georgetown, and Syracuse, which in turn invited Connecticut, Holy Cross, Rutgers, and Boston College to be members. UConn and Boston College would accept the invitation, while Holy Cross soon thereafter declined the invitation, and Rutgers eventually declined and remained in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Seton Hall was then invited as a replacement and the conference started play with seven members.Villanova and Pittsburgh joined shortly thereafter under the leadership of the first Big East commissioner, Dave Gavitt.
The conference remained largely unchanged until 1991, when it began to sponsor football, adding Miami as a full member, and Rutgers, Temple, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia as football-only members. Rutgers and West Virginia were offered full all-sports membership in 1995, while Virginia Tech waited until 2000 for the same offer. Temple football was kicked out after the 2004 season, but rejoined in 2012 and intended to become a full member in 2013.
The unusual structure of the Big East, with the "football" and "non-football" schools, led to instability in the conference. The waves of defection and replacement brought about by the conference realignments of 2005 and the early 2010s revealed tension between the football-sponsoring and non-football schools that eventually led to the split of the conference in 2013.
Realignment and reorganization
The conference was reorganized following the tumultuous period of realignment that hobbled the Big East between 2010 and 2013. The Big East was one of the most severely impacted conferences during the early-2010s conference realignment period. In all, 14 member schools announced their departure for other conferences, and 15 other schools announced plans to join the conference. Three of the latter group later backed out of their plans to join.On December 15, 2012, the Big East's seven remaining non-FBS schools, Catholic institutions consisting of DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Villanova announced that they voted unanimously to leave the Big East Conference effective June 30, 2015. The "Catholic 7", by leaving, were looking for a more lucrative television deal than the one they would receive by remaining with the football schools. In March 2013, representatives of the Catholic 7 announced they would leave the conference effective June 30, 2013, retaining the Big East name, $10 million, and the right to hold the conference's basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden.
Following the announcement of the departure of the Catholic 7 universities, the remaining ten football-playing members started the process of selecting a new name for the conference and choosing a new site to hold its basketball tournament. Various names were considered, with the "America 12" conference reportedly one of the finalists until rejected by college presidents sensitive of adding a number to the end of the conference name. On April 3, 2013, the conference announced that it had chosen a new name: American Athletic Conference. The conference also revealed that it prefers the nickname "The American" because it was thought "AAC" would cause too much confusion with the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Louisville and Rutgers spent one season in the newly renamed conference. On July 1, 2014, Louisville joined the ACC and Rutgers joined the Big Ten Conference. On that same day, East Carolina, Tulane, and Tulsa joined the American for all sports, while Sacramento State and San Diego State joined as affiliate members for women's rowing. Navy joined as an affiliate member in football on July 1, 2015.
Addition of Wichita State
For the next several years, the American did not discuss the addition of any new members. However, in March 2017, media reports indicated that the conference was seriously considering adding one or more new members specifically as basketball upgrades. Wichita State, Dayton, and VCU were reportedly considered, with Wichita State being seen as the strongest candidate. By the end of that month, it was reported that talks between the American and Wichita State had advanced to the point that the two sides were discussing a timeline for membership, with the possibility of the Shockers joining as a full but non-football member as early as the 2017–18 school year. The report indicated that a final decision would be made in April. The conference's board of directors voted unanimously on April 7 to add Wichita State effective in July 2017, making the Shockers the league's first full non-football member since the Big East split.Departure of UConn
On June 21, 2019, a Boston-area sports news website, Digital Sports Desk, revealed that UConn was expected to announce by the end of the month that it would leave the American for the Big East Conference in 2020. The story was picked up by multiple national media outlets the next day. The main issue that reportedly had to be resolved prior to any official announcement was the future of UConn football, as the Big East does not sponsor that sport, and sources indicated that the American had no interest in retaining UConn as a football-only member. Reportedly, American Athletic Conference insiders were not surprised by UConn's prospective move, as that school had been vigorously opposed to that league's most recently announced television deal.National media believed that should UConn leave the American, the conference's likeliest response would be to bring in two new schools—one for football only and a second in non-football sports, similar to the American's sequential additions of Navy and Wichita State. The most likely prospects for football-only membership were seen as Army, and Air Force. Any of several schools could potentially fill the non-football slot, with Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports considering VCU to be "the most logical target there." Thamel dismissed the prospect of the American adding a new all-sports member, saying "there's no obvious candidate who could add value in both basketball and football."
On June 24, 2019, it was reported that the Big East had formally approved an invitation for UConn to join the conference. On June 26, 2019, the UConn Board of Trustees accepted the invitation. On July 26, media reports indicated that UConn and the American had reached a buyout agreement that confirmed UConn's Big East arrival date as July 1, 2020, paying the American a $17 million exit fee.
It was widely reported that UConn was "rejoining" the Big East, given that the Huskies would be reunited with many of the schools against which it played for three decades in the original Big East. Indeed, UConn was the last charter member of the old Big East still playing in the American.
Added stability
The American took a number of steps to stabilize the conference after the departure of UConn. The first move was the addition of Old Dominion University as an affiliate member in women's lacrosse for the 2020–21 season. Old Dominion was previously added to the American for women's rowing beginning in the 2018–19 season.The American moved its headquarters from Providence, Rhode Island to Irving, Texas. This was a planned move, to better centralize the conference offices with the member schools. Irving is in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, which is also home to the headquarters of the Big 12 Conference, College Football Playoff, and the National Football Foundation. The conference also moved the men's basketball tournament to the region, to be played at the new Dickies Arena until 2022.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, some member schools have eliminated sports due to budget constraints. The University of Cincinnati eliminated its men's soccer program while East Carolina University canceled men and women's swimming and diving teams and tennis teams. Women's rowing member San Diego State University dropped that sport effective with the end of the 2020–21 season.
Big 12 raid and subsequent invitations to the conference
In late July 2021, founding Big 12 members Oklahoma and Texas jointly announced that they planned to leave the conference no later than 2025, and formally requested an invitation from the Southeastern Conference. Shortly thereafter, the American became a peripheral player in this saga when the Big 12 sent a cease and desist letter to current broadcast partner ESPN, charging the network with conspiring to damage the league by luring Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC, and also alleging that the network encouraged an unnamed conference to raid the Big 12 to pave the way for an earlier departure by Oklahoma and Texas. A later media report identified that other conference as the American. ESPN issued an official denial of the Big 12 charges, and officials from the American declined to comment.On September 3, Sports Illustrated reported that the Big 12 Conference was on the verge of inviting four schools— including American Athletic Conference members Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF. Later that month, all three schools received and accepted membership offers on the date of the presidents' meeting, with the official announcement stating only that they would join the Big 12 no later than 2024–25. On June 10, 2022, the American and the three departing schools announced a buyout agreement had been reached, confirming those schools' 2023 departure date. At the time, it was possible that Cincinnati and UCF could remain in the conference as affiliate members for women's lacrosse and men's soccer, respectively, as the Big 12 does not sponsor those sports, though no formal announcement was made. UCF would later accept an offer of men's soccer membership from the Sun Belt Conference effective in 2023, aligning its men's soccer program with that of West Virginia, the only pre-2023 Big 12 member sponsoring men's soccer. Cincinnati would remain in The American as a women's lacrosse affiliate, but left after the 2024 season when the Big 12 added that sport.