Conference Realignment

[Robert]

As we all know, conference realignment appears to be dead for the next several years unless the Big 12 decides they need a conference championship game. I am sure Ono, Bohn, and the rest of the university are still doing what they can, but things look grim right now.

I think it's time to think outside the box. The idea I am going to suggest might require swallowing some pride, but if we don't do something now, the Nippert expansion could be for naught if the P5 breaks away from the NCAA completely.

The main point I am going to make is that I think we should be open to taking less money than existing members in order to get into a P5 conference. The P5 conferences are paying their schools over $20 million per year in TV money. I can't seem to find the exact numbers for the AAC, but it's only a couple million, correct? So even if we agreed to take 10 million for the first 5 years of membership in the ACC or Big 12, that's still a huge improvement.

The Big 12 might especially find this attractive. Let's say Cincinnati and either UConn or UCF pitches a package deal to join and allow them to have a conference championship game. The agreement could be, we join the conference, but we do not cut into the $26.2 million that the current members share. Instead, we agree to split the extra revenue generated by the championship game (likely comparable to the AAC's entire TV revenue) and still come out ahead. This could be for a set period of time, which could be an arbitrary number like 5 years, or could be directly tied to when the next TV contract is negotiated.

Time is running out. Right now, we are getting by on buyout cash from the Big East split. After that well dries, where does the money come from? When the SHTF between the P5 and the NCAA, we are either in or out. Our future can be that of Louisville and Pittsburgh, or it can be that of Toledo and Akron.

Thoughts?