American Conference having ‘conversations’ about basketball-specific spending floor

• Story byThe Commercial Appeal
• American Conference having ‘conversations’ about basketball-specific spending floor

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ST. PETERSBURG, FL — In 2025, the American Conference became the first conference in college sports to institute a “minimum investment” threshold for its members.

That meant every school in the conference would be required to spend at least $10 million over a three-year period on revenue sharing. Some schools, like Memphis, cleared that in one year. Others were further away, but Pernetti told The Commercial Appeal at conference media days on July 24 that it’s gone well so far.

There have been conversations about expanding it, he said.

“We have talked at our annual meeting with the ADs about the idea of, ‘Okay, we’re a year in to this thing. We’re further ahead than everybody expected we would be. We should have two conversations. The minimum should maybe be higher, and then do we want to designate specific minimums to specific sports.”

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Asked specifically about a minimum investment threshold for just basketball, Pernetti said those have only been “conversations” and it doesn’t mean anything is imminent.

The American’s basketball level has struggled to keep up with its football level over the past few years. While the conference has been the top Group of Five conference in football over the past two years and sent Tulane to the College Football Playoff in 2025, basketball has lagged behind. The American has been a one-bid league to the NCAA Men’s Tournament for the last two seasons.

Pernetti has been trying to fix that. He hired former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese as an advisor in 2025 and said he also wants to look at other things like how they schedule conference games.

“We’ve made a concerted effort,” Pernetti said. “We have a basketball working group that’s working together. We have Mike Tranghese working on it. We’re looking at scheduling, scheduling alliances, how we schedule inside the league, minimum investment in basketball to elevate that. Because we know how important that is to our future.”

Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on X @thejonahdylan.