Aresco: New bowl at Marlins Park 'very likely'

Harry · July 10, 2013

The American Athletic Conference is working on a new lineup of bowl contracts starting with the 2014 football season, and commissioner Mike Aresco said Tuesday that he anticipates contracts for seven teams, including a new bowl game at Marlins Park in Miami.

"We're moving pretty steadily on that, and we think it's very likely to happen for Miami," said Aresco, who said he has talked with the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences about lining up a team on the other half of the new game. "It's something we really are excited about. We feel it's workable and would be good for our conference. It's exactly the kind of thing we need to do."

The Miami game would not likely be a spot for the American champion, should that team not land a spot in a top-six bowl in the new format -- one spot will go to the highest ranked champion from the American, Mountain West, MAC, Conference USA and Sun Belt conferences. That spot could be in Memphis, where C-USA's champion has played in the current bowl cycle.

"It's really the geographic center of our conference. It makes a lot of sense from a lot of different perspectives," said Aresco, whose initial American men's basketball tournament will be at FedEx Forum in Memphis in March.

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PlummMeanGreen · July 10, 2013

Looks like this may turn into one of those "what you can do--we can do better" kind of things between AAC Commish' Aresco and CUSA Commish' Banowsky before all this is over with.

How many more bowl games will the NCAA sanction is what I'd like to know? I'm reading on the CUSAbbs board where Alabama State may even be trying for a bowl game in their nice stadium.

Guess I'm one of a only a few who wants to see CUSA create and host a 2'nd bowl game in San Antonio, a la Wright Water's brainchild-- the NO's Bowl? We don't want to get too "East heavy" with these bowl games but that IMHO, of course. I guess we have no control on who our opponents would be but I do hope we get more Po5 opponents because other-wise how will our teams that do get ranked move up in the rankings? I realize that those days may be numbered as it is. Oh well....

GMG!

Edited July 10, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

Side Show Joe · July 10, 2013

I just can't see the AAC landing more then 2 bowls with the P5 conferences. The ACC already signed to play the AAC in the Military Bowl and rotate with C-USA for the Beef. They may get a Miami bowl, but I don't know if the ACC will be tied to it. I don't think the ACC would want 3 bowls tied to the AAC. I can't see the AAC getting the Liberty. I can't see the AAC getting a tie to the Houston Bowl. McMurphy reported the Armed Forces Bowl was probably going to C-USA. I just think Aresco is announcing the list of bowls he hopes to land.