ARTICLE FROM SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE - 11 Days ago.
SEPT. 17, 2021 6:17 PM PT
Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson has remained relatively quiet as the capricious winds of conference realignment swirl around him, as his counterparts in the American Athletic Conference and Sun Belt promote their products like carnival barkers, as reports surface that the AAC is trying to poach Mountain West schools.
“I don’t tell people what I’m doing every day, the calls I’ve made, the strategies, the internal conversations at the board level or AD level,” Thompson said Friday in an exclusive interview with the Union-Tribune. “We’re just as active. We just don’t articulate it or put out an agenda saying here’s what we’re doing today.
“But we’re talking and strategizing.”
The conversations, Thompson said, encompass the merits of keeping the current Mountain West intact, evaluating potential expansion targets and whether to stay at 10 football-playing members should a couple schools bolt for the AAC.
Thompson wouldn’t say which two are most apt to entertain the AAC’s advances, but several sources inside and outside the conference confirmed they are Air Force and Colorado State — and not San Diego State or Boise State, which seem content to stay in the Mountain West and wait for another round of power conference expansion, most likely with the Big 12. Earlier this year, SDSU Athletic Director John David Wicker called a rumored move to the AAC a “nonstarter.”
The latest realignment spasm had Texas and Oklahoma announce their intention to leave the Big 12 for the SEC, and the Big 12 replace them with BYU plus Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston of the AAC as soon as 2023. Now the AAC, down to eight football-playing members, is looking to backfill with teams from the Sun Belt, Conference USA or Mountain West.
A CBS Sports report Thursday identified four expansion targets from the Mountain West: SDSU, Boise State, Air Force and Colorado State.
The attraction is the AAC’s television deal with ESPN, which currently pays an estimated $6 million per school per year (less production costs for Olympic sports that are streamed digitally). The Mountain West’s contract with CBS and Fox is worth about half that, but a clause in the AAC deal reportedly allows ESPN to renegotiate with a change in membership.
The AAC’s remaining members: Memphis, SMU, South Florida, Temple, Tulsa, Tulane, East Carolina and Navy (football only).
“They have been told simply by the departure of those three schools, their average annual value drops to mid-$40 million,” Thompson said of the total AAC payout. “The Mountain West is $40 million. It’s a push. So you’re not going there for TV money. What are you going there for?
“When you value and balance brand, revenue and the practicality of playing in downtown Philadelphia and North Carolina and Tampa, is that what you want? You can do whatever you want in football, but you still have to address those other sports and the travel costs and the logistics.”
It amounts to the first public pushback from Thompson and the Mountain West against AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco, who has repeatedly promoted his conference as part of a “Power 6,” insists the TV contract won’t be devalued and says he will aggressively “replenish and reconstitute.”
Is Thompson’s silence by design, or by nature?
“I think it’s a little bit of both,” Thompson said. “Maybe it’s a personality flaw, people saying you’ve got to be like (Aresco). But who listens to AAC rhetoric? Who’s bought into the Power 6? I don’t think their full membership even has. Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida haven’t. … We deal in hard facts, black and white, and trying to improve our programs. You can call yourself anything, you can claim anything.
“I keep saying it like a broken record: If the 12 Mountain West institutions stay together, we’re the sixth-best conference. Circle the wagons, stay together, while simultaneously looking to see if there are institutions out there that make us even stronger.”
That’s the other half of the discussion, and in that regard Thompson indicated there is no consensus.
“I don’t know where it will end up,” he said. “We’ve got people in our league who feel we could survive as a 10-team league. We’ve got people who say the best solution is just the 12 of us binding together and we’re going to be wonderfully fine. And there are others who say, ‘Oh, we need to prepare if we lose some people to be back at the 12 number.’ And some who think we’d better with 14.
“But you can go down the list of eligible institutions and say, ‘You pick the two best programs top to bottom and let’s pursue them.’ One, I don’t know if they’d be interested. Two, do they make our collective product better? … There’s nothing wrong with a 10-team conference. The Big 12 did it for years. Are you just going to add people to add people?”
The other factor is exit fees. Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston are each on the hook for $10 million if they give 27 months’ notice, and even more if they negotiate an earlier departure to join the Big 12 with BYU in 2023-24.
The Mountain West requires only 12 months’ notice but three times the previous year’s conference payout from the TV contract, sponsorships and NCAA Tournament distributions. That totals about $12.5 million. If there’s less than a year notice, it doubles.
Some sources indicated the AAC might pay the Mountain West exit fees to kneecap its biggest competitor as the best conference not in the Power 5. But that assumes the remaining AAC athletic directors are willing to use exit fees from Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston to bankroll it with a potential reduction in their TV contract looming.
Realignment dominoes might tumble again when the current round of TV contracts expire. The Big Ten goes first in 2023, followed by the Pac-12 (2024), Big 12 (2025) and College Football Playoff (2026). The Mountain West signed a six-year contract through 2026; the AAC is locked into a 12-year deal through 2032.
For SDSU, Thompson said, the best play may be to stand pat and position itself for the next round of power conference musical chairs. Recent comments from Commissioner Bob Bowlsby and several Big 12 athletic directors left the expansion door ajar.
“I would be naïve if I didn’t think there are conversations between any of our institutions and other people,” Thompson said. “I think that’s their fiduciary responsibility and due diligence to their fan bases and season-ticket holders. You have to develop the best program that you can afford to develop. It worked for Utah, it worked for TCU, it worked for BYU, it worked for Central Florida and Houston."
Craig Thompson urges schools to ‘circle the wagons, stay together,’ amid reports AAC wants some Mountain West schools
BY MARK ZEIGLERSEPT. 17, 2021 6:17 PM PT
Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson has remained relatively quiet as the capricious winds of conference realignment swirl around him, as his counterparts in the American Athletic Conference and Sun Belt promote their products like carnival barkers, as reports surface that the AAC is trying to poach Mountain West schools.
“I don’t tell people what I’m doing every day, the calls I’ve made, the strategies, the internal conversations at the board level or AD level,” Thompson said Friday in an exclusive interview with the Union-Tribune. “We’re just as active. We just don’t articulate it or put out an agenda saying here’s what we’re doing today.
“But we’re talking and strategizing.”
The conversations, Thompson said, encompass the merits of keeping the current Mountain West intact, evaluating potential expansion targets and whether to stay at 10 football-playing members should a couple schools bolt for the AAC.
Thompson wouldn’t say which two are most apt to entertain the AAC’s advances, but several sources inside and outside the conference confirmed they are Air Force and Colorado State — and not San Diego State or Boise State, which seem content to stay in the Mountain West and wait for another round of power conference expansion, most likely with the Big 12. Earlier this year, SDSU Athletic Director John David Wicker called a rumored move to the AAC a “nonstarter.”
The latest realignment spasm had Texas and Oklahoma announce their intention to leave the Big 12 for the SEC, and the Big 12 replace them with BYU plus Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston of the AAC as soon as 2023. Now the AAC, down to eight football-playing members, is looking to backfill with teams from the Sun Belt, Conference USA or Mountain West.
A CBS Sports report Thursday identified four expansion targets from the Mountain West: SDSU, Boise State, Air Force and Colorado State.
The attraction is the AAC’s television deal with ESPN, which currently pays an estimated $6 million per school per year (less production costs for Olympic sports that are streamed digitally). The Mountain West’s contract with CBS and Fox is worth about half that, but a clause in the AAC deal reportedly allows ESPN to renegotiate with a change in membership.
The AAC’s remaining members: Memphis, SMU, South Florida, Temple, Tulsa, Tulane, East Carolina and Navy (football only).
“They have been told simply by the departure of those three schools, their average annual value drops to mid-$40 million,” Thompson said of the total AAC payout. “The Mountain West is $40 million. It’s a push. So you’re not going there for TV money. What are you going there for?
“When you value and balance brand, revenue and the practicality of playing in downtown Philadelphia and North Carolina and Tampa, is that what you want? You can do whatever you want in football, but you still have to address those other sports and the travel costs and the logistics.”
It amounts to the first public pushback from Thompson and the Mountain West against AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco, who has repeatedly promoted his conference as part of a “Power 6,” insists the TV contract won’t be devalued and says he will aggressively “replenish and reconstitute.”
Is Thompson’s silence by design, or by nature?
“I think it’s a little bit of both,” Thompson said. “Maybe it’s a personality flaw, people saying you’ve got to be like (Aresco). But who listens to AAC rhetoric? Who’s bought into the Power 6? I don’t think their full membership even has. Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida haven’t. … We deal in hard facts, black and white, and trying to improve our programs. You can call yourself anything, you can claim anything.
“I keep saying it like a broken record: If the 12 Mountain West institutions stay together, we’re the sixth-best conference. Circle the wagons, stay together, while simultaneously looking to see if there are institutions out there that make us even stronger.”
That’s the other half of the discussion, and in that regard Thompson indicated there is no consensus.
“I don’t know where it will end up,” he said. “We’ve got people in our league who feel we could survive as a 10-team league. We’ve got people who say the best solution is just the 12 of us binding together and we’re going to be wonderfully fine. And there are others who say, ‘Oh, we need to prepare if we lose some people to be back at the 12 number.’ And some who think we’d better with 14.
“But you can go down the list of eligible institutions and say, ‘You pick the two best programs top to bottom and let’s pursue them.’ One, I don’t know if they’d be interested. Two, do they make our collective product better? … There’s nothing wrong with a 10-team conference. The Big 12 did it for years. Are you just going to add people to add people?”
The other factor is exit fees. Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston are each on the hook for $10 million if they give 27 months’ notice, and even more if they negotiate an earlier departure to join the Big 12 with BYU in 2023-24.
The Mountain West requires only 12 months’ notice but three times the previous year’s conference payout from the TV contract, sponsorships and NCAA Tournament distributions. That totals about $12.5 million. If there’s less than a year notice, it doubles.
Some sources indicated the AAC might pay the Mountain West exit fees to kneecap its biggest competitor as the best conference not in the Power 5. But that assumes the remaining AAC athletic directors are willing to use exit fees from Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston to bankroll it with a potential reduction in their TV contract looming.
Realignment dominoes might tumble again when the current round of TV contracts expire. The Big Ten goes first in 2023, followed by the Pac-12 (2024), Big 12 (2025) and College Football Playoff (2026). The Mountain West signed a six-year contract through 2026; the AAC is locked into a 12-year deal through 2032.
For SDSU, Thompson said, the best play may be to stand pat and position itself for the next round of power conference musical chairs. Recent comments from Commissioner Bob Bowlsby and several Big 12 athletic directors left the expansion door ajar.
“I would be naïve if I didn’t think there are conversations between any of our institutions and other people,” Thompson said. “I think that’s their fiduciary responsibility and due diligence to their fan bases and season-ticket holders. You have to develop the best program that you can afford to develop. It worked for Utah, it worked for TCU, it worked for BYU, it worked for Central Florida and Houston."
