AAU membership means nothing in the face of TV money.
On a human level, sure, I like the idea of prestigious colleges all belonging to some elite membership club. But with stuff like NIL, players' unions and collective bargaining coming down the pike, the Big Ten would be foolhardy to keep clutching their AAU pearls while the other conferences pass them by.
There are currently 66 AAU members, but many of them do not sponsor FBS football (Harvard, Yale) or compete at some D3 / NAIA level like Brandeis and Emory. Scrubbing out those schools (as well as already-B1G schools) here's who's left in FBS:
Conference | AAU Members |
---|
PAC (9) | Arizona, Cal, Colorado, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington |
ACC (5) | Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Pitt, Virginia |
SEC (4) | Florida, Missouri, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt |
Big XII (3) | Iowa State, Kansas, Texas |
Other (3) | Buffalo, Rice, Tulane |
If the Big Ten expands, nobody is coming from the Pac-12. Colorado is the only school with a half-argument for admission, solely on the fact that a rivalry exists with Nebraska. But if you think travel problems for non-revenue sports is bad from Lincoln, try tacking on another 450 miles to Boulder. The Buffs are logistically much better in the Pac-12, and it's not like the Big Ten could somehow scoop up, what, Cal? Stanford?
The ACC offers 2-3 targets of any interest: Virginia and UNC/Duke. UVA would preserve the contiguous footprint of the conference but the Cavaliers are a non-factor in football, really. The have some impressive basketball and lacrosse teams but this is always about football. You'd be better off adding Virginia Tech, but the Hokies aren't an AAU member. UNC/Duke offers an interesting combo, but I feel like you'd have to get both of them, plus they'd need to forgo rivalries with Wake and NC State. They have their own quadrangle of hate with the four NC schools and I just don't see them jumping ship.
Nobody is leaving the SEC for the B1G. It's apples to apples. They make just as much money and have a better perception athletically, thanks to recent success by Alabama and to a lesser extent, LSU and UGA. Mizzou might be tempted but it would have to be some two-step tango where we also pull in Kansas and get the Husker-Jayhawk-Tiger triangle happening again.
On that note, Iowa State ain't getting in. Hawkeyes will see to that. Texas could. The Longhorns are literally the only remaining AAU member in the country that makes a tiny bit of sense geographically (not really) and are nationally relevant, and offer fertile recruiting ground.
Skip the G5 teams. Never happening.
So, basically Texas. Texas is the lone AAU member who could work in the Big Ten. And after all that, I'm supposed to believe that the Big Ten would patently reject Oklahoma (or Notre Dame, for that matter) if they wanted to join the conference? "Sure, we'll take Kansas over Oklahoma. We'll take Iowa State over Notre Dame..."
It makes no sense. Once conference realignment spins up again, AAU Membership as a prerequisite for Big Ten membership is about to go flying out the window. Or if Kevin Warren sticks to his academic guns, don't be surprised when NU, along with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Iowa and Wisconsin bail out for better football climates in a new conference or league.