IRVING, Texas – In light of the departure of four teams to the Big 12 Conference, the American Athletic Conference has voted to accept six teams for membership in the AAC. Tulsa is already a member of the AAC.
The AAC Board of Directors and Commissioner Mike Aresco announced six universities have had their applications for membership in The American approved by the conference’s nine continuing members.
Those new members are:
- The University of Alabama at Birmingham – Birmingham, Alabama
- Florida Atlantic University – Boca Raton, Florida
- The University of North Carolina at Charlotte – Charlotte, North Carolina
- The University of North Texas – Denton, Texas
- Rice University – Houston, Texas
- The University of Texas at San Antonio – San Antonio, Texas
All six are leaving Conference USA.
The six universities will join the nine continuing members – East Carolina, Memphis, Navy (football only), South Florida, SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa and Wichita State (basketball and Olympic sports only) – to bring The American’s membership to 15 schools. The American will compete as a 14-team league in football and in men’s and women’s basketball, among other sports.
The dominos began to fall when Oklahoma and Texas petitioned for membership and were accepted into the Southeastern Conference. That prompted three AAC members – Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston – to accept invitations to the Big 12. Independent BYU is also joining the Big 12.
All the schools that are moving have commitments to stay for at least one year but those contracts are expected to be renegotiated for early departure. No dates have been set.
“We have added established institutions from major cities into The American footprint with 13 of our schools now among the top-70 Nielsen media markets. Geographically, these six universities will provide The University of Tulsa the opportunity to develop new rivalries and reignite some old ones, while also increasing the level and widening the scope of exposure,” said Rick Dickson, VP & Director of Athletics, The University of Tulsa.
“On behalf of the American Athletic Conference presidents, I look forward to years of healthy competition with our six new members,” said Michael Fitts, President of Tulane University and Chair of The American’s Board of Directors. “I am confident that we have not only added fine institutions that share our collective ambition for national success, but we have done so in a deliberate and sensible way that will contribute to the long-term future of the conference.”
The six new members join a conference that has achieved success in the league’s first eight seasons. In football alone, Memphis has registered three 10-win seasons in the last six years (2015, 2017, 2019), including a school-record 12 wins and a Cotton Bowl appearance in 2019.
Tulsa returned to the top 25 for the first time in 11 years in 2020.
Navy won a program-record 11 games in 2015 and matched that mark in 2019. Temple enjoyed its first 10-win season in school history in 2015.
South Florida finished in the top 25 for the first two times in program history (2016, 2017). SMU returned to national prominence in 2019 with a 10-win season, during which the Mustangs were ranked as high as No. 14 nationally.
East Carolina earned a top-20 ranking in 2014, while Tulane has played in three consecutive bowl games for the first time in school history.
Wichita State has made two NCAA tournament appearances in men’s basketball, won The American’s 2021 regular-season title and has been ranked as high as No. 3 in the Associated Press poll since the Shockers joined the conference in 2017.
The American Athletic Conference was reconstituted in 2013 and serves its members from its headquarters in Irving, Texas.
The American sponsors 22 championships, 10 for men and 12 for women, has television partnerships with ESPN, CBS Sports (for select men’s basketball games) and CBS Sports Network (for most Navy home football games), and has a marketing partnership with Learfield
“I am extremely pleased to welcome these six outstanding universities to the American Athletic Conference,” said Aresco. “This is a strategic expansion that accomplishes a number of goals as we take the conference into its second decade. We are adding excellent institutions that are established in major cities and have invested in competing at the highest level. We have enhanced geographical concentration which will especially help the conference’s men’s and women’s basketball and Olympic sports teams. And we will continue to provide valuable inventory to our major media rights partner, ESPN, which will feature our members on the most prominent platforms in sports media. Additionally, we increase the value in live content options for CBS Sports, which features selected men’s basketball games on CBS Sports.”
The AAC will have a presence in four of the top 10, seven of the top 25 and 12 of the top 51 Nielsen media markets. The league will have four teams in the state of Texas, two each in Florida and North Carolina and one each in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma and Kansas.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham enrolls more than 22,500 undergraduate and graduate students. The university is centrally located among The American’s membership and is situated in the Birmingham DMA, which has been ranked No. 1 nationally in college football television ratings for 19 consecutive years.
UAB sponsors 18 sports, including 15 that will compete in the American Athletic Conference. The Blazers have won two Conference USA championships since the return of football in 2017 and they have a new 42,000-seat Protective Stadium in 2021. UAB has made 15 NCAA tournament appearance in men’s basketball, advancing to the Eight Eight in 1982, and has 10 postseason appearances in women’s basketball, including an NCAA Sweet 16.
UAB has developed a 46,000-square-foot football operations center and is constructing a state-of-the-art basketball practice facility that will be completed in the spring of 2022.
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte has become North Carolina’s urban research university. It is the third-largest in the UNC System with 30,500 undergraduate and graduate students and more than 150,000 living alumni.
Charlotte sponsors 18 varsity sports, all of which will compete in The American. The 49ers’ football program began in 2013, moved to the FBS level in 2015 and played in a bowl game for the first time in 2019. The men’s basketball program, which began NCAA Division I play in the 1970-71 season, became the youngest to reach the NCAA Final Four when the 49ers played in the 1977 national semifinals. Charlotte has made 11 NCAA tournament appearances in men’s basketball.
The 49ers unveiled Jerry Richardson Stadium in 2013, along with the launch of the football program. The facility was constructed to be expandable to 40,000 seats. The basketball and volleyball programs play in the 9,105-seat Halton Arena.
Florida Atlantic University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students representing all 50 states and 140 countries.
FAU’s main campus, in Boca Raton, is less than three miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The university is part of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale media market, which is ranked No. 18 by Nielsen and is a key recruiting area both locally and nationally.
FAU sponsors 19 sports, including 18 that will compete in The American. The Owls’ football program began in the 2001 season and debuted the near-30,000-seat FAU Stadium in 2011 and has won three conference titles, including two Conference USA championships in the last four years. The Owls have made five bowl appearances, going 4-1 in bowls.
The University of North Texas enrolls more than 42,000 students and counts nearly 500,000 living alumni.
North Texas has embarked on a 20-year plan to modernize all of the institution’s athletics facilities and provide added support to student-athletes. The first phases of that project included a 98,000-square-foot indoor practice facility and a new soccer and track and field stadium – both of which opened in 2019.
North Texas has 16 varsity sports, all of which will compete in The American. The Mean Green football team played in the Conference USA championship game in 2017 and won four consecutive conference titles from 2001-04. North Texas won the 2021 conference title in men’s basketball and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Championship.
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University has 4,052 undergraduates and 3,484 graduate students. Recent enhancements to the athletics profile include construction of a football operations center, a new indoor training facility, the endowment of the head coaching position and an AstroTurf game field at Rice Stadium.
Rice sponsors 16 varsity sports that will compete in the American Athletic Conference. Rice was a charter member of the Southwest Conference and has a football pedigree that includes three Cotton Bowl wins as well as an Orange Bowl victory.
The University of Texas at San Antonio is advancing a $500 million capital campaign and a $500 million academic capital projects effort.
Founded in 1969, UTSA serves 34,700 students. It is the only public NCAA Division I institution in the city of San Antonio, the nation’s seventh largest city, and one of the largest in the nation without an NFL franchise. It is the second-largest city in Texas. San Antonio has hosted 19 NCAA Championships since 1997, including four Men’s Final Fours and three Women’s Final Fours. UTSA will host the 2025 Men’s Final Four.
UTSA sponsors 17 varsity sports, all of which will compete in The American. The Roadrunners play their home football games at the 64,000-seat Alamodome. Their first home football game in 2011 garnered 56,743 spectators. UTSA tied an NCAA record by reaching a bowl game in their sixth season with their appearance in the 2016 New Mexico Bowl while the university made its second bowl appearance in 2020 with the First Responder Bowl.
UTSA unveiled its 95,000-square-foot Roadrunner Athletics Center of Excellence in August and is embarking on an expansive athletics capital projects effort to develop a new 10,000-seat arena for basketball and volleyball, new baseball and softball stadiums, a dedicated basketball/volleyball training facility and a standalone facility for soccer and track-and-field.