AAC media days left questions answered and unresolved for UC?
Link
https://theathletic.com/1081183/2019/07/...ed-for-uc/

With conference media days starting up this week, the college football season has officially wandered back to civilization from its brief wilderness of recruiting, arbitrary administrative verdicts and early morning, strobe-lit weightlifting sessions.

That includes the American Athletic Conference, which hosted its gridiron contingent in Newport, Rhode Island, for fresh-caught lobster and some well-clad interview sessions.

The event was a reintroduction of sorts for the Cincinnati Bearcats, at least within the conference ecosystem, properly hyped and lauded this year after a surprise 11-2 season in 2018. UC was picked second in the AAC preseason poll, finishing behind Central Florida in both the American Championship vote and the East division standings, and quarterback Desmond Ridder and running back Michael Warren II were both recognized on national award watch lists.

Much of the broader interest still focused on the impact of UConn’s impending departure and how UCF would respond to a pair of debilitating injuries at quarterback, but there were a handful of takeaways relevant to the Bearcats, both on and off the field.

Holding strong at 11 members
AAC commissioner Mike Aresco addressed the one-win Huskie in the room head-on in his opening remarks on Tuesday morning. “As you know, in the wake of recent events, there has been much speculation regarding our membership going forward,” Aresco said. “It is important, for the sake of comity in college athletics, and among our friends in other conferences, to tamp down that speculation. At this point we are comfortable with 12 teams — 11 in football and in men’s and women’s basketball — and have no plans to add a member to replace UConn. We are not targeting anyone.”

RELATED: UConn football tries to ignore the noise as its post-AAC future is debated

This falls in line with what Aresco told me a couple weeks ago and what numerous sources have suggested was the general feeling. Aresco even doubled down on stamping out speculation when asked about schools that might have an interest in buying their way into the conference, telling The Athletic: “No. The money runs out. Then you’re in a situation you wouldn’t have been in. I don’t think we’d have an interest in that.”

The one significant remaining roadblock with an 11-team football league is how the scheduling shakes out, though Aresco was again adamant that the conference would keep a championship game. The AAC also prefers to not have unbalanced divisions, but that puts the American in uncharted waters when it comes to configuring matchups. Aresco has continually cited the Big 10 as a conference that existed as an 11-team league for many years — albeit without a championship game — and has also expressed confidence in securing approval from the NCAA on whatever format they do land on. Clearly, that solution is still in the works.

Embracing ESPN+
Before UConn sprinted across a sun-splashed beach and leapt into the waiting arms of the Big East, the top offseason story for the AAC was the new 12-year, $1-billion television rights agreement with ESPN, set to start with the 2020-21 season.

The final numbers may get tweaked at 11 teams instead of 12, but the conference did its damndest to put the deal front-and-center again in Newport. Aresco hailed it as “a landmark 12-year TV/media deal with ESPN which validates our success over the past six years, and which gives us a strong tailwind into an even more successful future.”

The budding emphasis on ESPN+ broadcasts is a crucial piece of the partnership — the Big 12 recently entered a similar streaming covenant of its own with the platform — but it’s also among the chief concerns for the Bearcats, and one that stretches back to before the deal was even finalized.

On Feb. 24 of this year — more than a month before the new rights deal was officially announced — UC Athletic Director Mike Bohn wrote a letter to Aresco on behalf of the AAC Finance Committee and Television Committee, which also included Patrick Kraft of Temple and Danny White of UCF. The letter, acquired via a public records request, laid out two specific points of contention with the then unfinalized agreement with ESPN. The first was “the assignment of production costs associated with increased ESPN+ digital streaming content.” The second was “a model of media rights payouts that includes a merit-based distribution component,” which Aresco has since stated is not something he felt was in the league’s best interest. In the letter, Bohn also stressed that “in addition to consulting with the presidents of our member institutions, we believe it is also important in your role as commissioner to engage our conference’s athletic directors directly prior to any official votes, especially on subjects that would benefit greatly from our expertise and input, such as the budgeting and operational requirements of the agreement.”

In Aresco’s response to Bohn two days later, obtained via the same record request, the commissioner wrote: “Please be assured that the internal items you mention should and will be discussed with the athletic directors. However, these matters can be addressed after the ESPN negotiation is completed and should not slow down that process. We have good reason to want to conclude the ESPN negotiation and announce a new deal as soon as possible. Neither of the items you reference has an impact on whether we accept and conclude the ESPN deal that is on the table. As I mentioned, these are matters we can take up later because the new deal will not start until 2020-21 and we will have no ESPN+ obligations until then. We will have ample time to discuss them.”

That time still exists, but at least some degree of a plan is in place regarding the ESPN+ productions. “Whatever football is on ESPN+, we’ll produce through the conference. It won’t have a huge effect on allocations from distribution. We’re going to do that internally,” Aresco told The Athletic. “(The member schools are) likely to be responsible for their men’s and women’s basketball on ESPN+, but it’s a marginal cost relative to what they’re getting in rights fees. It’s a fraction. We’re getting more, and that factored in the cost of what we’re doing.”

Just how marginal the cost, and how steady and manageable it remains through the life of the deal, is still unknown.

No wayward expansion
On Monday, some 1,700 miles away from Newport, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby stated at his conference’s media day that the league had no intention of expanding. UConn ghosting the AAC stirred the realignment pot once again, with the 10-team Big 12 being the most logical landing zone among the Power Five conferences. But Bowlsby shot that idea down before the UC’s and Houston’s and UCF’s of the sport could finish their morning coffee, with Aresco taking a similar tact in regard to UConn’s vacated spot about 24 hours later.

Bowlsby did admit that the conference has had discussions about expanding the College Football Playoff, which leaves open the possibility for some landscape rattling in the near future. Though as far as the AAC and its programs are concerned, there are no obvious or acknowledged paths to realignment, in or out, for the time being.

P6 state of mind
Six years in, the “Power 6” brand endures inside the walls of the AAC fiefdom, touted repeatedly and often in regard to conference’s upcoming marquee showcases. The opening weekend alone features UC welcoming UCLA to Nippert Stadium, South Florida hosting Wisconsin, Ole Miss traveling to Memphis and Houston going on the road to face Oklahoma.

The league also folded its bowl game lineup into the Newport mix, announcing annual slots in the Military Bowl and a new, untitled bowl in Boston, both against ACC opponents. A third annual selection will alternate between the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl and the SoFi Hawaii Bowl, along with four additional annual appearances from a pool of eight bowls.

Despite all the P5 opponents and primetime telecasts, the upper-crust bowl games remain more aspirational than attainable. The New Year’s Six spot still requires the top CFP ranking among Group of Five schools, and as any UCF fan in shouting distance will tell you, actually making the playoff is a fool’s errand.

“We still face headwinds, mainly the result of the G5 label we are currently saddled with, but mark my words, that will change,” Aresco said on Tuesday.

For some members, not soon enough.