Message from Commissioner Mike Aresco As we proudly mark today as the official launch date of the American Athletic Conference, I am extremely pleased to welcome the University of Central Florida, the University of Houston, the University of Memphis and Southern Methodist University as members of our reinvented Conference. We are delighted to have these distinguished institutions join us. We also look forward to welcoming Tulane University, East Carolina University, and the University of Tulsa in 2014 and the United States Naval Academy in 2015.



As you know, we have made enormous progress during the past months in so many key areas, and we approach the future with energy and optimism as well as enormous confidence in our prospects. We have created a strong foundation and we will be an outstanding Conference in every respect. We will emphasize academic performance, good citizenship and sportsmanship, and we will provide our accomplished student-athletes with the highest level of competition.

In hindsight, we probably shouldn’t open for business until three days from now. After all, what’s more American than the Fourth of July?But after a process that has taken the better part of the last two years to complete, you can’t blame us for opening our doors the minute we become official. So July 1 it is.Indeed, it’s a new day in college athletics. The seemingly endless game of musical chairs appears to have stopped. Some old rivalries are gone. Some new ones will be nurtured – a few simply through geographic proximity; others through what happens on the fields of play. Either way, the time to dwell on the past is over.The American Athletic Conference is here.Armed with a good name, an attractive graphic identity and top-of-the-line institutions, The American will be able to carve its niche in a crowded field from Day 1. Our teams will be nationally competitive in every sport. We will be the embodiment of character, scholarship, citizenship and success. We will be a fixture on television and an innovator in digital media.We consist of schools that have a history of success and have invested the resources to go even further. The American will provide them with that platform.We start with 10 schools: UCF, UConn, Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Rutgers, USF, SMU and Temple. Within two years, the conference will have 12 teams on board, including East Carolina, Navy, Tulane and Tulsa.We will be competitive right away. In football, we have three teams that won 10 games last year. The only league with more? The SEC.In basketball, we will have the sitting NCAA men’s and women’s champions. And we will have multiple contenders to win the 2014 titles.In baseball, soccer, track & field, softball, volleyball and other sports, you’ll see multiple American teams in NCAA competition.We will be easy to find on television, thanks to our partnerships with ESPN and CBS Sports. We will have an incredible number of games on national television and we’ll have the backing of the two industry leaders in sports television.Our new website will be clean, informative and current – and will be available on any desktop or mobile device. We will communicate on social media, making it easy to keep track of your favorite team.We are Proudly American. And we can’t wait to get started.