The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
What’s the price for ripping off the AAC BandAid? $17M
The exit cost was more than folks in Connecticut initially expected, certainly more than UConn wanted to pay and less than the American Athletic Conference wanted to receive. In the end, UConn and athletic director David Benedict had to close their eyes and rip off that BandAid known as Tulane and Tulsa.
The price tag: $17 million. Matters became official on Friday. UConn will leave the AAC in time to compete in the Big East for the 202021 season. With no football in
the Big East, UConn, as expected, also announced it will pursue a future course as an FBS independent.
The most intriguing part on this day, however, was not in the letters. It was in the numbers. When UConn made its intentions known to leave the American in June, it was immediately reinforced that league bylaws demanded a 27month exit notification and $10 million fee.
The 27 months is key. That wouldn’t have been a twoyear commitment to remain in the American. That would have meant three.
UConn sports fans, excited and itching badly to return to its Big East home, would have been waiting until 202223.
That would have been more than a temporary buzzkill.
That would have led to growing anger and disappointment among the school’s fan base and growing resentment among the American schools toward UConn. AAC commissioner Mike Aresco also knew that such potential ugliness is best ended sooner than later. He said that in Newport at the AAC football media day earlier this month.
Something had to give in negotiations.
And UConn, without much leverage, did. More than it wanted.
If the exit would have been negotiated for next July and the fee for, oh, $12.5 million, UConn’s victory would have been overwhelming not only in emotion but in negotiation. Such early optimism evaporated when word began to slide out that it could cost north of $15 million. On Thursday, we no longer needed to find out how far north.
UConn getting out in one year is quicker than some schools did in national conference realignment. West Virginia did pay the Big East $20 million after a lawsuit enabled WVU to leave in one year. Of course, the Big 12, which paid $9 million of it, is
a Power Five conference.
Is UConn happy with paying $17 million? Of course not. Like we said, the leverage did not reside in Storrs.
Yes, it will sting the first two years, but what UConn did work out was a good arrangement to pay it off. In that context, an athletic department already squirting red ink of $40 million annual at last count, made it palatable.
The AAC already is holding in escrow this past year’s yearend distribution of approximately $5.1 million to UConn. The AAC will hold next year’s distribution, too. There’s no way of knowing an exact figure. Some of it depends on how successful the league is, especially in football. If the AAC lands a spot in a New Year’s Six bowl, as it has the last few years, and Geno Auriemma gets the UConn women into the Final Four (a direct $500,000 bonus), that will mean a payout in the $5 million to $6 million range.
The hope is UConn is around the $11 million mark by next year. UConn negotiated the balance, and each year for the following six years the school would give the AAC about $1 million. That’s tenable.
With the move, the school also looks at saving upward of $2 million a year in travel and believes there will be at least a $2 million increase in revenue related to men’s basketball. If those figures reach fruition, the entire $17 million exit and $3.5 million Big East entry fees would be covered in five years.
If you can get your money back in five years and you’re planning to play elite hoops until the Final Four is decided in the Book of Revelation, it’s a sound business decision.
Here’s where the faith comes in. If UConn fans want to be as fiscally satisfied as they are basketball elated with the move, Randy Edsall needs to win football games. And, vitally important, Benedict must annually get attractive teams on an independent schedule.
That will determine
whether UConn is perpetually UMass or can rise closer to a BYU. It also will frame an argument whether football should stay, drop to FCS or go entirely. Those words are not delivered lightly.
Said Benedict: “While I can’t start talking about specific teams we’re talking to and looking to put on our schedule — you need to have contracts done — I’m very optimistic in our ability to put together very competitive and attractive schedules.”
In the next two years, UConn has homeandhome series with Illinois and Indiana. In 2021, UConn has Purdue at home and a big payday at Clemson. There is the completion of the Purdue series and ones against NC State, Duke and Boston College in succeeding years. Tennessee is down the road. They are starting points. While Benedict eschews specifics, there are whispers of some attractive Power Five schools — ACC, SEC — as soon as 2020.
The proof, of course, will be in the scheduling pudding.
College fans cheer for and against the laundry more than the players between the lines. Some really good AAC football and basketball teams came into the Rent, XL Center and Gampel Pavilion in recent years and did little more than create a blip. Villanova comes into the XL Center, good grief, it’s crazy.
Beyond initially notifying some AAC schools that UConn was leaving after news unexpectedly leaked, there was no contact between Benedict and any of the American members. The negotiation was with the commissioner’s office. While so far apart at one point that UConn feared the league was negotiating the school into staying for three years, both sides maintained it remained fairly amicable.
UConn simply didn’t have the money to write the bigger check Aresco wanted. The move to the Big East isn’t a Power Five goldmine. The move is to get UConn where it feels it needs to be. To help close the negotiating gap, UConn agreed to make a “best effort” to play games, four homeandhomes, against AAC teams during the exiting period. Say, two series each for the men and women against Temple and Memphis with the men and USF with the women. Who knows which schools are willing to enter a difficult environment like Gampel? We’ll see how it goes.
There are a few other factors to consider. While reports centered on a $7 million average payout a year from the AAC from a new 12year, $1 billion media deal, the firstyear payout is around $5 million and builds from there. There also was the cost assumed by the schools for producing ESPN+ broadcasts. The substantial weight for UConn would have been in men’s and women’s basketball. SNY has done a highlevel job with the women and there would have been expectations to maintain quality. UConn fans don’t want dimestore hoops broadcasts.
Eventually, UConn would have needed to produce 75 total games a year across its athletic teams. If 1520 were men’s and women’s basketball that might be $15,000$20,000 a game, the school could have been looking at $300,000$400,000 fairly quickly. Factor in more than 50 other events, at $3,000 to $5,000, that’s at least $500,000 a year.
In the immediate glow of June’s Big East announcement, UConn sold 3,000 basketball season tickets. Confirmation of the exit should provide more momentum.
“I think we’ll see another spike in the next week,” Benedict said.
In the meantime, the UConn AD will work the phones constantly for football opponents and a television deal. SNY has been a strong partner and will be there for football if needed. Still, a national outlet would be the No. 1 choice. There’s no denying $17 million is a big gulp, and there is great pressure to make this all work.