Bearhawkeye
The King of Breakfast
Posts: 13,708
Joined: Mar 2004
Reputation: 585
I Root For: Zinzinnati
Location:
|
RE: New Conference name per Tommy G.
I'll throw this in here even though it is goes beyond criticizing the name to a critique on the basketball:
Quote:EyeOn College Basketball
What's in a name? American Athletic Conf. has much to prove in hoops
By Matt Norlander | Senior Blogger
April 3, 2013 6:48 pm ET
The Big East, which still stands as its own league for a few more months, will soon be splitting. The Catholic 7 has bought the rights to the name "The Big East," and so the other half of the league has finally decided on a brand and designation.
Wednesday night, the conference sent out a press release that "American Athletic Conference" will be the new name of the new union. It's boring, bland, corporate, and I'm bummed that "Metro League" or "Metro Conference" wasn't the final choice.
AAC. Instead of ACC.
Perhaps there's a coup in place to trick Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville and Notre Dame to join the wrong league and just settle after the mistake.
The name change and branding redesign, everything about this league, will take effect on July 1 of this year.
“We worked with our institutions, sports marketing experts, media partners, and also solicited opinions and reactions from collegiate sports fans to create a compelling list of names,” league commissioner Mike Aresco said in a statement. “Versions that included the word 'American' led every list. American Athletic Conference represents a strong, durable and aspirational name for our reinvented Conference."
The conference also tweeted out that the intention will be to call this league "The American" for short. I guess that's all right. I'm not in love with it. Basketball-wise, what's the impact? I'm not sure. The league will be just OK. It remains to be seen how its teams and success will translate following the fracture.
The name's the name. It doesn't mean that much. What will matter and what will impact branding and perception is how the league wins going forward. There's a diversity of opinion on this. Some believe Memphis, UConn, Temple and Cincinnati can lead the conference in the thick of the chase, to be a top-six league. Others think it's doomed for unstable ground and will hover around where the Atlantic 10 had been in recent years: OK, but not putting out national-title contenders.
It will start off in perception as a peg or two below the new Big East, which will have the Catholic 7 -- DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's and Villanova -- in addition to Xavier, Creighton and Butler.
With Tulsa included, below is the expected membership of the new American Athletic Conference.
2013-14: Cincinnati, Connecticut, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Rutgers, SMU, Temple, UCF, USF.
2014-15: Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UCF, USF.
2015-16: Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, Navy, SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UCF, USF.
-- Chip Patterson contributed to this report.
(This post was last modified: 04-03-2013 07:57 PM by Bearhawkeye.)
|
|