The American Athletic Conference has agreed to a monster television deal with ESPN.
Sports Business Journal reported the following Tuesday:
The American Athletic Conference will get $1B for its media rights from ESPN over 12 years, according to sources. The average of $83.3 million per year is about four times what the AAC was making in its previous rights agreement with the net, which paid the league just over $20 million annually. The new agreement begins in ’20-21 and runs through the ’31-32 academic year.
The annual per-school average of $6.94M provides each AAC school with nearly $5M more in annual revenue.
I couldn’t believe this was real when I saw the numbers. The AAC? Is this a joke? Outside of UCF, literally nobody cares about the AAC. Nobody without ties to the conference gives a damn about their football games. (RELATED: Clemson Beats Al
Sure, we all enjoy UCF tearing it up, but I don’t think people are clamoring to see UConn and Tulsa battle it out. What an incredible high-stakes matchup that’ll be over the next 12 years!
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If this is the kind of money the AAC is getting these days, I can’t even begin to imagine what the Big Ten and SEC could get today if they renegotiated everything. What are we thinking? $10 billion? $15 billion?
Both conferences are about 100 times more important the AAC, and they just got a cool billion. These are the facts, and they don’t care about your feelings.
I’m honestly floored they got $1 billion. Again, outside of UCF, I wouldn’t pay $10 for a ticket to most AAC games, and I’m about as rabid of a college football fan as you’ll ever see.
Something tells me that ESPN is really going to regret this decision.
