C-USA is no stranger to conference realignment

Harry · June 30, 2013

From its founding in 1995, Conference USA has been a home for the upwardly mobile.

Created by a merger of the Metro Conference and Great Midwest, it immediately became one of the nation's best college basketball leagues with national powers Louisville, DePaul, Marquette, Cincinnati and Memphis as charter members.

Eventually, Houston, East Carolina, SMU and Texas Christian would join, making the conference something of a national player in not only basketball, but football.

Monday morning, Old Dominion officially departs the Colonial Athletic Association to became a member of Conference USA, a league that has seen radical change in its 18 years.

Many members have moved on to bigger and better things. Louisville landed in the Big East and is headed to the ACC in 2014. Texas Christian moved to the Big 12. Houston, Cincinnati and Memphis are all in the newly formed American Athletic Conference, a spinoff of the Big East.

Britt Banowsky, who has been the C-USA commissioner since 2002, said change is a good thing.

"I embrace change because I think it's the opportunity to reinvent and keep us fresh," he said.

He's certainly seen plenty of it. Since 2005, 15 members have either left the league or announced they will leave in the near future.

The Big East/AAC has absorbed nine schools since then. Three more depart in 2014.

Seven others join C-USA today: Florida International, Florida Atlantic, Middle Tennessee and North Texas from the Sun Belt; Louisiana Tech and Texas-San Antonio (Western Athletic Conference) and UNC Charlotte (Atlantic 10). Western Kentucky also leaves the Sun Belt for C-USA in 2014.

By 2014, only five schools will remain from the 14 that were members in 2012 - Southern Miss, Rice, Texas-El Paso, Alabama-Birmingham and Marshall.

The league retains TV contracts with Fox College Sports, Fox Sports 1 and the CBS Sports Network, and, according to tax returns available online, a healthy bottom line. Conference USA's latest returns, filed in 2011, show it had $58 million in revenue and $48 million in expenses. Its $32 million in assets include $15 million in cash.

Read more: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/06/cusa-no-stranger-conference-realignment