Could Boise State become a part of AAC’s future?
The American Athletic Conference will kick off the 2020 football season this fall with 11 members, but if the league is ever interested in expanding, it may have a strong option out West.
Boise State spent a New York minute in the Big East in 2012 before choosing to rejoin the Mountain West. But the Broncos’ relationship with the Mountain West may not be as solid as it was a few years ago.
Last week, the Mountain West announced it had reached a new six-year, $270 million media rights deal with FOX and CBS that has the potential to triple each school’s annual payout of $1.1 million. The agreement included an exemption that allows Boise State to negotiate a separate TV rights deal for its home football games.
The school’s previous deal with ESPN reportedly paid $1.8 million in 2019, along with its $1.1 million annual payout from the conference.
According to the Idaho Statesman, the new deal would nearly double Boise State’s current annual revenue from $2.9 million to $5.7 million.
But MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson told reporters on a conference call this would be the last media rights deal in which the league would allow Boise State to negotiate its own separate agreement.
That didn’t sit well with Boise State officials, who released a statement Friday evening that read:
“The Mountain West stated that this was the last time our deal would be negotiated separately. However, Boise State’s decision to join the conference was predicated on a number of negotiated provisions, including the right to separately negotiate material terms of media rights relating to our home [football] games.
“This is stated in our conference agreement and cannot be changed by any vote of the membership or conflicting agreement. We will not support any change to this provision and are in the process of weighing our options to move forward.”
Boise State hasn’t revealed how it plans to resolve the conflict, but one option could be for the school to explore leaving the Mountain West for another conference or independence.
The American Athletic Conference could be a destination now that the league is looking for a replacement for Connecticut. The AAC received a waiver from the NCAA that allows it to host a conference championship game in football with less than the required 12 members.
But the waiver is only good from 2020-22 unless the league proposes changes to the NCAA legislation.
AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco said while the league’s schools are happy with the 11-team lineup in football, ultimately the group favors returning to divisional play in the future.
“I think down the road, our schools would like to get back to 12,” Aresco told the Orlando Sentinel in December. “We like divisional play in football.”
He said only a handful of teams would be a perfect fit for the AAC, but he declined to speculate on any possible candidates.
The AAC’s new 12-year media rights deal with ESPN, which reportedly was worth $1 billion, is set to begin in 2020. While the league won’t release any financial figures, the agreement reportedly would pay members upward of $7 million annually.
Adding Boise State, particularly as a football-only member, would give the AAC a boost.
Only Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma have a better winning percentage during the past decade than the Broncos (80%), with the program winning six Mountain West Conference titles during that stretch.
Boise State was ranked in each of the final College Football Playoff rankings from 2017-19 The Broncos reached as high as No. 19.
The AAC is coming off one of its strongest seasons, with three teams ranked in the final playoff rankings: Memphis (17), Cincinnati (21) and Navy (23), as well as four teams ranked in the final Associated Press rankings: Memphis (17), Navy (20), Cincinnati (21) and UCF (24).
The league has placed a team in a New Year’s Six Access Bowl during four of the last five seasons: Houston (2015), UCF (2017, 2018) and Memphis (2019).
Whether the AAC expands remains to be seen, but the Boise State situation could be one to watch as the league works to get back to divisional play.