The ever-aggressive American Athletic Conference became the first NCAA league to establish a minimum amount of benefits that member schools must share with their athletes.
AAC school presidents voted to require what Yahoo Sports reported was “at least $10 million in cumulative additional benefits over a three-year period, starting with the 2025-26 academic year.”
“This action is another indication for how the American differentiates itself from its peers,” AAC Commissioner Tim Pernetti said.
“We are committed to differentiating the American in every way we can and we are committed to delivering an unrivaled experience for student-athletes and positioning our members in the best place for the future of college athletics.”
The move could have unintended consequences, however.
Pernetti told Ross Dellenger that AAC members who don’t meet the $10 million financial requirement by the 2027-28 academic year will be subject to a “review” of their membership status within the league.
Schools that fail to meet the $10 million minimum standard by the 2027-28 academic year will be subject to a “review” of their membership status within the league, commissioner Tim Pernetti tells @YahooSports.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) March 7, 2025
Essentially Sports reported that Florida Atlantic, UAB, and North Texas are currently well short of that threshold in revenue sharing. The website said those three programs have, as of this year those three programs have paid $5,987,661 combined for revenue sharing.
Army and Navy are exempt from the requirement because they are federally funded.
USF Vice President for Athletics Michael Kelly was unavailable for comment. However, the Bulls athletic program is funded at historically high levels for the school. It has focused on surviving and thriving in the brave new world facing college athletics.
The “Minimum Investment Program,” as it is called, only sets a floor. Conference schools can provide up to $20.5 million annually in benefits to athletes, per the NCAA’s agreement to settle antitrust lawsuits by allowing athletes to profit directly from their name, likeness, and image.
A federal judge is set to issue a final ruling on that settlement in April.
Yahoo reported that the Minimum Investment Program enables schools to give up to $2.5 million in new scholarships and up to $2.5 million in a stipend that some schools have been distributing to their athletes. The conference would not dictate how the benefits must be distributed, but schools will be required to report their expenditures.
If the AAC’s move is a harbinger of things to come for college athletics, there was immediate speculation that many programs now participating in Division I could be forced to drop into a lower division.
It also could hasten the creation of a so-called “super league” with only the top 75 or so programs participating.