UTSA among six colleges applying to move to the AAC

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) — The University of Texas at San Antonio is among six teams reportedly applying to join the American Athletic Conference.

Yahoo Sports reports UTSA is one of six Conference USA schools looking to make the move.  The other five are Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, North Texas, Rice, and UAB.

The move comes as the AAC looks to replace four schools that have already left or announced plans to leave the conference.  Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston are planning to join the Big 12 in the next few years and UConn left the conference after the 2019 season.

Moving to the AAC will have these six schools take on Temple, Memphis, Tulane, USF, East Carolina, Navy, Tulsa, and SMU in football.

Part of the motivation for the schools, according to Yahoo, is bigger television revenue.  Currently, schools in Conference USA make less than $1 million annually from television revenue, though that is expected to jump to more than $2 million and then continue to increase.  Moving the AAC, schools will be expected to earn about $7 million from that conference TV deal with ESPN.