HARTFORD, Conn. _ UConn is on the verge of joining the Big East for all sports that the conference sponsors including basketball, sources confirmed Saturday. Though the university is awaiting and fully expecting an official invitation from the Big East, an announcement of the Huskies' move is forthcoming.
This move will return UConn to its storied basketball roots and trigger long-term security and better opportunity for its two programs in that sport. However, UConn must figure out what to do with its football program because the primary Big East schools do not play that sport. Dropping the program is not being considered. It is highly unlikely that the American Athletic Conference would have interest in retaining UConn as a football-only member, though with scheduling done well in advance the Huskies are expected to play in the AAC for the upcoming season.
UConn will have to find another conference for football by the 2020 season or have the program operate as an independent. Details are still being negotiated on several fronts, including financial. UConn has explored a move to the Big East in recent years but found several sticking points, including high exit fees.
The timing of the move for basketball and other sports is also uncertain, though the Huskies are expected to compete in the AAC for at least one more season.
The AAC exit fee is $10 million and members schools are required to give 27 months notice. The fee would have to be negotiated if UConn leaves earlier than September 2022.
The move was first reported by Digital Sports Desk, a Boston-based website.
Reached Saturday, a UConn athletics department spokesperson said in a statement: "It is our responsibility to always be mindful of what is in the best interest of our student athletes, our fans and our future. With that being said we have been and remain proud members of the American Athletic Conference."
The Big East had no comment, a conference spokesperson said.
Any deal would need the approval of UConn's Board of Trustees. Thomas Ritter, chairman of the board, declined comment Saturday morning.
While the move solidifies the school's basketball programs that will play against storied rivals, football will remain a question mark. The team won just one game last year and three in each of the two years prior. Attendance has also dipped dramatically with the school announcing about 21,000 tickets distributed per game last season, down from 2010 when it was above 38,000 tickets.
"If it happens, I'm concerned about football, I'm a football fan," former UConn men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun said. "I like going to big football games. But from a basketball standpoint, there is something magical about our run over those years in the Big East that was pretty special to everybody. It was a special era."
Of the new Big East, Calhoun said, "Villanova's a name, St. John's _ it's a long way from East Carolina. Seton Hall, Providence is a neighborhood rivalry, I think that will heat up again. You can't make Temple, Tulane, those teams, into rivalries. Going into the XL Center, seeing 14-15,000 people. There's something about rivalries, when you don't have them anymore, you realize how special they were."
The AAC is the result of a Division I athletics realignment during the early 2010s. While the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac 12 became the Power 5 conferences, UConn was left without a home in any of them, having hoped to land in the ACC or Big Ten.
Instead it remained in the Big East, which re-formed, in part, as the AAC, adding schools such as Houston, Memphis, Central Florida and others. When the old Big East fell apart, a new Big East formed, focusing on basketball. The conference, made up nearly entirely by Catholic schools, includes Butler, Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Saint John's, Seton Hall, Villanova and Xavier. UConn is already an associated member of the conference for field hockey.
The conference was spread out geographically, but there was hope in pulling together schools in major markets that it would result in significant TV deals, financially.
The AAC and ESPN agreed to a 12-year, $1 billion TV deal earlier this year in which UConn would receive about $7 million per year _ a figure substantially smaller than schools in the Power 5 conferences receive. Under the deal, about 500 AAC sporting events during the 2020-21 school year, including basketball and football games, will be available exclusively through ESPN+, the $4.99 per month digital streaming service launched last year. The number of AAC games on ESPN+ will increase to at least 1,000 per year beginning in 2022-23.
UConn Athletic Director David Benedict voiced concern over the deal because it would largely move Huskies games off linear TV and could jeopardize the university's TV deal with SNY. Representatives of SNY and ESPN have said the networks are discussing a possible deal, but that remains unresolved.
"We are disappointed that there will be a reduction in linear TV exposure for our men's and women's basketball programs, including but not limited to the potential loss of our successful partnership with SNY," Benedict said.
AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco, however, has been supportive of the ESPN-AAC deal, calling ESPN+ the "digital future." An AAC spokesperson could not immediately be reached. An ESPN spokesperson declined comment, Saturday.
The Big East signed a 12-year, $500 million basketball-only TV Deal with Fox Sports in 2013. CBS and CBS Sports Network also air some Big East games as part of an agreement with Fox Sports reached earlier this year.
The news of UConn being in talks with the Big East comes as the university's athletic department grapples with a $41 million deficit during 2018, which was made up for through student fees and university subsidy.
"In recent years, declining conference and media licensing revenue, along with rising costs, have created the current deficit," a UConn spokesperson told The Courant earlier this year. "It is not sustainable and the Division of Athletics is continually working to identify savings and drive up revenue in order to help close this gap."
The biggest individual team culprit of the UConn athletic department's 2018 deficit was the school's football program, which lost $8.7 million. Additionally, men's basketball lost about $5 million, women's basketball lost about $3.1 million and the rest of the school's sports lost about $22.3 million among them.
UConn spent $17 million in coaches' salaries, $16.9 million in athletic scholarships, $14.4 million in support staff and administrative compensation and $7.3 million in team travel.
