mtrout wrote:They're leaving just when the conference payout will more than triple from ~2mil to ~7mil plus? I guess their entire sports program is getting tired of traveling to Houston and Tulsa for games. Regional conferences make way more sense to me...I guess they're finding this out the hard way.
We just got Wichita State. Why not replace them with someone else that makes little sense?
I lived in the Hartford area for 15 years (Thankfully, I am home in Texas now)
Imagine SMU decided test joining the MAC would be an upgrade over the AAC. Even if it were true, SMU fans wouldn’t be happy watching us play those schools over relatively local teams. Do you know anyone who went to Eastern Michigan or Ohio.
That is how Uconn fans feel about AAC basketball. Even if the AAC was a “better” BB conference than the Big East, UConn fans didn’t get excited about games against Memphis, SMU, Houston, or Wichita State. They stayed home and both the men and women had lots of empty seats for home games. Donations went down.
Since the state is broke, Uconn could no longer subsidize a football program that was hemorrhaging cash. This move has really exited their BB fanbase because everyone in CT has friends who are fans of virtually every Big East school. They will show up in droves to see Georgetown, Providence, Nova, etc,
The FB team will slowly die.