The first season of the American Athletic Conference football saw both UCF and Louisville finish with top-15 rankings, with UCF bringing the league a victory in its first-ever BCS bowl. The conference also carved out its own spot in the crowded sports TV field, playing on Friday nights on ESPN. Heading into year two, AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco envisions more success for the once-again reconfigured conference. In a recent Q&A, he discussed the conference's TV deal, the future structure of the NCAA, and other issues in college sports.
Q: Looking at your TV deal, what would you like to see improve going forward?
Aresco: We’re very happy with the exposure. ESPN has been over-delivering in terms of windows, in terms of the networks that we’re on. What we need to do is sit down and see if there’s a way we can somehow generate more revenue. That’s clearly it. We’ve provided more value than anyone expected, and now we have to figure out a way to be inventive regarding the contract. We’ll try to sit down sooner rather than later with ESPN to see if there’s something we can figure out. One of the things we are doing to try to generate more value is play those Friday games. We’ve carved that niche out, but it’s a hardship on our schools. We’re also playing Thursdays; we’re also looking potentially at other days. We think that can create some value. We’re also looking for other ways we can create value for ESPN, whether it’s with ESPN3 or other things we can do. It’s absolutely critical to our future.
Q: Besides having the spotlight to yourself on Friday, how else have those games been beneficial?
Aresco: The biggest benefit is having the spotlight on you, I don’t think there’s any question. We’re a new league, we understand that we’re selling a new product, we have to identify ourselves. The identity around the country is something that is going to take some time. We got a pretty good start. Thank goodness we have the ESPN platforms because they’re showing our logo constantly. They’re going to use a new joint logo with the wipes this year when you go from action to action or scene to scene -- you’ll see the ESPN and American logo just like SEC and CBS. The other thing ESPN does for us is we get a lot of valuable PSA time. We’ve done some cutting-edge PSAs and you’ll see them this fall. We’re going to make a concerted effort; we’re doing more advertising now, to make an effort to get the identity out there. We have a lot of work to do there still.
Q: How delicate of a balance is it with potential Tuesday and Wednesday games for schools coming into those on short weeks?
Aresco: You have to have a bye week for those. Your schedule is not easy to do. We haven’t done and Tuesdays and we haven’t really talked about Tuesdays at this point. I think at this point it’s something we would look at, but we don’t want to be known as a Tuesday-Wednesday league. We don’t mind the Fridays -- they give us a great showcase, a great platform. We play many of our games on Saturday, but as you know, Saturday is getting crowded. You actually will do a lot better on Fridays and on Thursdays once the network (NFL) package is finished; you have more of a fighting chance, I imagine.
Q: Beyond winning, what can the American do to change people’s perception of the conference?
Aresco: Had we not won the national championship in basketball, I don’t know we would have gotten the kind of attention we got. But we did win it, and we won the Fiesta Bowl. That was huge, planting the flag in the ground that we had. Besides winning, I think we need to increase attendance. When you see a game of ours, you want to see a great atmosphere, there’s no question about that. I think we have to do as much as we possibly can when it comes to these autonomous categories that involve financial outlays for student-athletes in various areas. We’re going to have to do as much of that as we possibly can so we can be viewed as having the resources to be in that conversation, in that group. It’s going to be how well we do on the field and on the court, and whether the perception or the reality that we have the resources. Remember, they’re viewing themselves as autonomous for several reasons. One, they say they’re more visible; we’re visible, too. We think we’ve already sort of hit that box. That they have been competitive extremely; we think we’ve hit that box, at least I the beginning. And then they talk about the level of resources. That’s a box we got to work at, we have to show people.
Q: If the Power Five conferences were to ever break away, what do you anticipate the fallout to be for the other conferences?
Aresco: I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think there will be a fourth division. If there were a move toward that, it would have a profound effect on us. We would insist that we would be part of it, that we have a 12-year college playoff deal, that it would harm us economically; it would harm us in other ways. So we would feel a strong inclination to push to be in it. We are a signatory to a 12-year deal, and if you are suddenly in a separate division and you’re viewed differently; your competitive position is viewed differently and you have issue of how you can compete. If you set up a fourth division, then you have questions of what to do with the NCAA Tournament deal. What do you do with a lot of different things? There would be profound implications of that.
Q: How do you balance your belief the conference should be included with the Power Five, yet maintain an upstart mentality?
Aresco: That shows the delicate, fine-line that we walk, why our situation is different. We know who we are. We know we have work to do, we’re not arguing that, and we know we have to build the brand. When I say we’re knocking on the door and that we’re five plus one, it’s because I really believe that we are. What is going to determine that is whether we continue winning and winning at a greater level, whether we spend the money we need to spend to show we can deal with those issues, and ultimately, media perception is going to be extremely important.
