There was big news from both a UT Arlington perspective and conference affiliation shuffling that came out this week. As has been the case for its entire history, the Western Athletic Conference will survive, despite the handwringing from the media and social media circles.
What was known prior to this week was Seattle University and Grand Canyon were out of the conference at the end of this month. Common belief among the remaining WAC members was good riddance to the second. That left seven schools, Abilene Christian, California Baptist, Southern Utah, Tarleton State, Utah Tech, Utah Valley along with UTA, for the upcoming athletic year. Seven is the minimum for an automatic berth into the men's basketball tournament.
California Baptist accepted an invitation from the Big West Conference several months ago and Utah Valley formally did the same last month. That would leave only five members for the 2026/27 athletic year. With limited options in the footprint, schools bailing for competitively weaker conferences and no Division II schools ready to move, people were predicting the WAC's demise.
Rumors started appearing earlier in the week that Utah Tech was a serious target of the Big Sky Conference. They recently lost Sacramento State, who is attempting to go to the Football Bowl Subdivision. The move would make sense in many ways for the BSC.
On Wednesday, the BSC formally announced Utah Tech would join in one year. Surprisingly, Southern Utah is going with them. There were widespread reports that SUU's departure from the Big Sky three years ago left the relationship between all parties strained. Apparently, bygones are bygones and the travel pair is headed together.
That left three schools in Texas holding the bag. The common thought was the WAC could not continue and the three schools would run somewhere else. The last one to turn off the lights would get the remaining payouts as a consolation prize.
But as the WAC has done in its entire history, it found a way to survive.
Along with the announcement of the two Utah schools leaving, media reports were made of a merger and reassortment of schools with the Atlantic Sun Conference. Instead of a fifteen-team conference sharing a lone auto-bid to the NCAA tournaments, there will still be two conferences as the five football playing schools of the ASun will join the WAC. The WAC will rebrand under the name of the football conference that are shared by the two parties and become the United Athletic Conference. The name change kind of had to happen as no teams would be in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, or the western part of the country.
The remaining seven ASun members will keep the ASun banner.
The other part of the equation is the buzz-speak aspect. I'll try to translate some of this, but first, the following came from the WAC's press release:
Independent Operation with Shared Efficiencies: While both the ASUN and the newly branded UAC will retain their independent conference structures and automatic qualifiers to NCAA championships, they will partner within a broadly defined consortium. This consortium will facilitate collaborative scheduling, the leveraging of collective assets, and the exploration of various shared operational efficiencies designed to benefit all member institutions.
The layman may struggle with what this means, but there could be some potentially good selling points.
First, it sounds like the conferences will be run by the same folks. Jeff Bacon is the Commissioner of the ASun. The press release says he will run the "consortium." That likely means much of the conference staff will serve both conferences. It could decrease the overhead costs per school.
They will also share a media deal. With 15 members total, there will be a lot of content available. I doubt there will be any windfall from the deal, but there should be a steady supply of games for the interested networks.
One of the main selling points is a scheduling alliance, much like the WAC had with CUSA, though I don't know the exact details. It will help ease the difficulties in scheduling for non-Power-5 conferences, particularly in basketball where the NET rankings punish schools like UTA. The Mavericks are not in the bottom, which doesn't hurt the schools in the top with a win or loss to those bad schools. However, the Mavs are talented enough to upset the schools, which would hurt them. So schools won't schedule the top teams from the rest of the NCAA. Sadly, at this level, UTA just needs games. This will help with that aim.
One other thing that should help but was not mentioned is all the sports will have a home in this arrangement. Men's tennis is main issue for UTA as there will be one other remaining WAC school who sponsor the sport. Three of the five incoming ASun schools have men's tennis. Though I can't find the minimum number a conference needs for an auto bid, five should be enough to maintain it as the WAC has had four teams and made the postseason event. If not, six remaining ASun schools do have the sport.
Central Arkansas will likely be affected by that aspect. The Bears are the only school of the new UAC that currently sponsors men's soccer. They'll likely have their program in the ASun.
One thing left unsaid directly but could be a result of "shared efficiencies" is multiple conference tournaments at the same spot. Tennis, the various track and field sports for each gender, maybe beach volleyball if it gets split or even golf could all be held at the same time. There could be some real cost savings in these kind of situations.
Overall, I think this is about as good as it can get. Ideally, UTA would have stayed in the Sun Belt or announced the return of football and get back there with the probable departure of Texas State.
But that isn't happening. Aside from the fact the SBC seems to be drifting east and the votes for adding west may not be there, UTA's lack of football extremely lessens the Mavs appeal, and not just with the SBC.
With that limitation set, I can't think of a better alternative. The Summit League was also rumored to be interested in the Texas WAC schools. Texas has more in common with the Gulf states than the central states up to the Canadian border. Saint Thomas, the Dakota schools, even Kansas City seem less intriguing to me than the current ASun football-playing schools.
While the Missouri Valley Conference, a prior possibility, is a higher caliber group from a competitive standpoint, there is low rivalry options with its current membership.
While Eastern Kentucky, Austin Peay and North Alabama won't move the needle much locally, keeping Abilene Christian and Tarleton keep those rivalries going. Central Arkansas could be a benefit, even if marginally.
And I'm ecstatic over the number of teams. UTA can compete well with eight total schools. There have been some close calls where UTA just missed out on postseason play over the last few years. UTA played in the 12-team SBC for years, the WAC had 13 teams in the first year back, 11 in year two and nine last year. My hope is the seven-team WAC will see multiple bids earned by the Mavs this coming year. Baseball, men's basketball and softball are all working on postseason droughts longer than a decade.
Other than protecting against membership raids, I don't understand why more conferences don't mirror what the Ivy League, Patriot League and now the ASun and UAC do with the lower number of teams. The NCAA awards units for the number of appearances in the basketball tournaments. That number is the same for all schools. The money is given to the conferences to be divided, usually equally, among the members. Lower teams in a conference translates to a higher payout per school.
And there has been talk that additional teams may be interested, so that point could be moot later. What does matter is UTA has a stable conference home. For historians of collegiate sports, the WAC stays alive, even if under the banner of a different name. UTA's house is the same but just looks a little different.
At least for me, the worry about UTA's overall future is over and we as fans can get back to the actual games.
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