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(female announcer) This is a production of WKNO-Memphis.
Production funding for "Sports Files" is made possible
in part by..
My guest today on "Sports Files" is the commissioner of
the American Athletic Conference, Mike Aresco.
[theme music] ♪♪♪
The American Athletic Conference has been
holding it's first ever Men's Basketball Tournament this week
at FedExForum.
The hoop season in the American has been terrific,
and even with the loss of Louisville next year,
roundball is in good shape.
Football had a better than expected season with U-C-F
beating Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl,
but the Cardinals departure hurts pigskin as well.
Since it's inception a year ago, the American has been hit with
everything from uppercuts - to teeth rattling roundhouses,
but the league has avoided a knockout.
Yes, there was some serious doubt it would ever get off the
ground.
It not only did, but it also made a major impact.
So what lies ahead for this Conference?
And will the minefields still exist?
Today I go one on one with the Commissioner of the American,
Mike Aresco, next on "Sports Files."
[theme music] ♪♪♪
Mike, an absolute pleasure having you on the program.
Thanks so much for your time.
Great to be here, Greg.
Thanks for having me.
Barring any unforeseen circumstance,
it looks like you're gonna have five teams,
five out of ten in the N-C-A-A tournament for the men.
That's pretty incredible.
Yeah, it really is.
And, you know, knock on wood.
But we do think we have five.
And you know we never know.
But everybody seems to think that even our lowest of the five
probably would be S-M-U at this point in terms of resume has a
good enough, one, and is in every bracketologist's,
you know, upper tier so that there really isn't possibility
that they would fall too far.
Now let's all hope that's true.
But yeah, it's been a remarkable accomplishment for the league.
But you know it's intersting, Greg.
When I started, you know, talking about this,
I said we have a good group of schools here.
We've got good basketball pedigree.
You know we have good football schools too but we can build our
football.
We have some brands that maybe aren't as well known or they
haven't accomplished as much.
But basketball -- my goodness!
When we finally had five teams in the top 25,
I got a flood of calls, as you can imagine,
from members of the media.
And I said some of them seem incredulous.
Others were, you know, obviously quite surprised.
And I said guys, the one thing I would point out without..
There's no arrogance in our conference at all.
And there never will be.
I said but you know these are not a group of start-ups.
These are not a group of schools that played Division II last
week and now have moved in to the big time.
I said U-Conn has won three national championships.
Cincinnati, Memphis, perennial tournament teams that have,
you know, contended for national championships.
You know you look at S-M-U with Larry Brown.
That's the one surprise although I thought that he could get it
done pretty quickly.
I didn't think it would -- maybe he'd make this much progress
this quickly.
But the truth is when you look at our other school then..
Temple -- people forget Temple is down a bit this year.
You know they've had six straight tournament appearances.
So it won't be long before, you know,
Fren Dunphy who's a wonderful coach.
He's a national treaure, great guy.
Will have them back on top.
So this is gonna be a good basketball league.
And it already is, obviously.
In other words, you expected it to be good.
It has been good.
Maybe it's exceeded some people's expectations.
But again, I think it's a great accomplishment for the first
year of existence in this league to have five teams in.
With that said, how do you think this conference in mens
basketball compares to the other great conferences in basketball?
Josh Paster said the other day he thinks it's the best
conference.
You know Josh is the best.
He's absolutley the best.
You know he has enthusiasm.
His support of the conference has been.
He's been incredibly supportive of the conference,
of me personally, everything we're trying to do.
And you know I'm just delighted to be here and be able to see
him.
He's just been great.
How much do you think it stacks up to the Big 12?
Yeah, I think we stack up pretty favorably at our upper end.
I think our conference is a little unusual because our
bottom tier has not been as competitive as some other
conferences.
But I think in part, it's because we have a really strong
top tier.
I mean if you look at our schools..
Again, you alluded to earlier my notion that we were going to be
pretty good.
I knew U-Conn, Cincinnati, Memphis and Louisville would
come back loaded with seniors and leadership.
U-Conn couldn't be in the tournament last year but they'd
a been a tournament team.
And so I was pretty confident.
We have four tournament teams unless they collapse for
whatever reason.
S-M-U is a surprise.
But we also had pretty high hopes for Houston.
And Houston is a funny team because they have talent.
They can do some damage in this tournament if somebody's not
careful.
S-M-U has to play them in the first game that they play.
But if you look at our top tier, Greg,
very strong.
You know and Louisville's rounding in to form.
They could make another run at a final four.
One thing I would point to -- we probably won't get that many
really high seeds because our conference has been so
competitive, especially down this stretch.
You know we've had three weeks of just really,
really tough games.
And people have won and they've lost.
Knocking off each other.
Exactly.
Louisville and Cincinnati still have a shot to be in the either
two or three line I guess.
That's what people are speculating.
We'll have some other teams probably further down,
maybe seven, eight, nine.
And you know they'll have tough games.
They'll have tough early games and tough second round games.
How we stack up to the other guys?
I think we're at our top five are competitive with anyone in
the country.
I think there's any doubt about it.
Look, Virginia is one of the best teams in the A-C-C and
S-M-U lost to them by a couple of points.
S-M-U went out and beat Wyoming.
S-M-U scrimmaged wtih Colorado and Larry Brown did an interview
with Mike Francesa in New York Yesterday.
I was driving to the women's game and I happened to listen to
it.
And he pointed out that hey, I knew we had a good team when we
went out and scrimmaged Colorado when they still had Dinwiddie.
And we clobbered 'em.
And that's how I knew we'd be pretty good.
And I watched S-M-U play Louisville down in Texas a
couple of weeks ago.
And that was..
What a scene by the way!
That's..
We should talk a little about that.
It's a happenin' place, I'll tell ya.
It's really remarkable.
Not to mention, Connecticut beat Florida,
which is the number one team, at least right now in the nation.
Yeah, Florida only lost..
Memphis only lost two points.
One last thing I would add about this is I think people have been
taking shots at our bottom tier.
But Houston and Temple have been competitive a good part of the
year.
They slipped a bit because they just ran out of gas.
You know they didn't have the depth.
Temple doesn't have enough players this year.
No question Temple will be back.
There's no doubt in my mind.
Mike, what enticed you to bring the tournament,
the first ever American men's tournament,
to Memphis?
Yeah, it was a natural spot to consider.
One, it's a, you know, it's a basketball centered town.
People here are passionate about basketball,
college basketball in particular.
They love college basketball.
They love the Memphis Tigers.
You know I was on a flight back to New York when I came here for
media day.
And I was sitting next to a doctor from Memphis who was
going to New York for some kind of seminar.
And he said you know it doesn't matter where you go to school.
People love their Memphis Tigers basketball in this town.
And we knew that that would be a huge wind at our back if we came
here.
The other thing is Louisville's just down the road.
We knew we'd have Louisville one more year.
We weren't sure if we went further a field that Lousiville
fans would come.
But we knew they'd come to Memphis.
Cincinnati, again, down the road.
The other thing about Memphis is beautiful arena.
That was a big factor.
You know we looked at other places and we said you know
FedEx Forum is as good as it gets,
in addition to hotels, Beale street,
the restaurants.
It's a great scene.
It's a great place for a tournament.
The weather is likely to be good.
You know you're gonna have a spring time kind of feeling.
It'll be good for fans.
So there were just a lot of postives.
Also, you know the visitor and, you know,
convention bureau did a tremendous job.
You know they really made a tremendous bid in conjunction
with University of Memphis, Tom Bowen,
Brad Roberts -- excuse me, Brad Martin.
They made a great bid.
It was competitive with all the other bids.
And for all those other reasons, we just thought we want a blow
out affair the first year.
Sure.
And you know again, I'm not rooting.
Believe me.
I don't know what'll happen Thursday.
If Memphis ever gets to Friday, I mean it's pretty much
guaranteed.
And even if they don't, I think you're gonna see the crowds.
You have a one-year option with them to bring it back for next
year.
What will go in to making that decision?
What variables?
And how quickly do you think you'll make an announcement on
next year?
I don't think it's far off.
I don't know whether we'll do it this week at our A-D's.
We're having an athletic directors' meeting on Thursday.
I'm not sure we'll do it then because we're gonna present
competeing bids.
People have still been interested in taking the event
somewhere else.
But I think what's going to go in to it is one,
we're not gonna know fully how successful it's gonna be here
but we have a pretty good idea.
I think the other thing is gonna be okay.
What are the other bids?
Does it really make sense with logistics in place here with all
the things we've got already here in Memphis,
with Memphis likely to be very good again?
And you know, obviously, that creates a built in fan base.
Cincinnati up the road, S-M-U not far away,
a cluster of schools around Memphis.
It's probably the geographical center of our conference when
you really think about it.
I think all those things will go in to it.
I think Memphis is probably, I would argue,
you know, that it's probably a front runner.
It'll be up to our, you know, athletic directors ultimately,
our presidents.
But the presidents will probably do what we and the athletic
directors want to do here.
So you know, again, we're really thinking hard about Memphis for
another year.
We just don't know yet.
Mike, this conference in basketball has obviously proved
itself.
Even next year when Louisville moves on,
you're losing a strong basketball program.
But you still have a lot of strong basketball programs.
You're losing a strong football program as well.
And we know that's where it needs to pick up.
It was a great first year in football.
How much of an impact will that be and with these new teams
coming in, with Tulsa, with Tulane,
with East Carolina, can you get to where you need to be in
football?
Yeah, I think so.
And that's a really good question,
Greg.
Because you know we're thinking about the future of the
conference.
And I think the conference has a bright future.
I think the issue for us is going to be..
You mentioned basketball.
We've got..
Temple should be back.
Tulsa -- they won a share of the Conference U-S-A title this
year.
Danny Manning is bringing them back.
As you know, they have great tradition in basketball.
And you know Nolan Richardson, Bill Self,
Tubby Smith, you know.
Great coaches, great tradition.
Almost went to a Final Four some years back.
So that's going to help us.
In addition, I think S-M-U.
It's already burst on the scene as a program.
But next year, they bring in some great recruits.
You know commissioners aren't supposed to really talk about
recruits but coaches can.
And Larry was talking about his.
But like you said, you're set.
You're set in basketball.
I think you're fine.
I think we are.
Yeah, football is another story.
And yet, we're bringing in East Carolina's superb football
program.
50,000 every game, tremedous team,
Heisman trophy cadidates, the quarterback.
The issue there is they're going to get exposure they've never
got before.
I mean they're gonna be on tv in a way like U-C-F this year.
U-C-F could never have done this in their old conference,
not a chance.
They didn't get the exposure then.
They were on E-S-P-N a number of times this season.
They were on premiere Thursday games,
premiere Friday games.
They were on Saturday.
They'e on A-B-C against South Carolina.
You know they had a B-C-S automatic qualifier.
And we've still got a path to the B-C-S or it's going to be
the college football play-off in the future,
the bowl, you know, scenario.
But in terms of our football, Tulsa had had a great,
as you know, great football program.
And then it slipped a bit.
I'm sure they'll come back.
Tulane's already in a bowl.
Tulane has rebuilt the program.
Got two new stadiums coming online,
Houston and Tulane.
That'll be really exciting for us.
Houston, Cincinnati, U-C-F -- very strong teams.
What we have to do in football, Greg,
is build our awareness, build our programs,
build our brand.
You know U-C-F, you know...
Yeah, U-C-F..
It's hard to overstate what they did in the Fiesta Bowl and what
it did for the conference.
I don't think there's any question that you need that kind
of thing.
Because now when people say well,
they're a power conference.
You're in a non-power conference.
I'll say tell U-C-F we're in a non-power conference.
Tell Baylor that they played a team in a non-power conference.
You know we think we have teams that can compete at that level.
And fortunately, our schedules over the next five or six years
show that we can.
You know we can compete against them.
What I meant to say is we'll have the opportunity to compete
against them.
We're playing a lot of games against those teams.
We're also playing a number of gaems against a very good B-Y-U
program, which will help our teams a lot.
So I think football's going to be fun.
Let me ask you this without getting in to too many details.
I'm sure you don't want to.
And it's kind of boring talking the monetary deal,
the contracts and such.
But you made your deals with E-S-P-N,
with C-B-S.
You're a television guy.
You know all about that.
I gotta think they're pretty happy with this product this
year.
Moving forward, what do you see on the horizon?
Yeah, you know they're thirlled.
I mean they really are.
Both networks are.
And you can see why.
We've been extraordinarily successful in both football and
basketball and have delivered real value,
especially in basketball but also in football because we play
Thursdays and Fridays.
And we had some strong teams and we had some good races.
Now we know we're going to lose Louisville but we're gonna pick
up some really good football schools.
I think down the road it's going to come down to this.
You have to go back and remember a year ago,
we were unstable.
We lost Louisville and Rutgers and that put a big dent in what
we were trying to accomplish with our tv negotiation.
The the Catholic Seven decided okay,
we don't want to be dealing with this anymore.
We don't want to be dealing with football.
Things are becoming football centric when it comes to
negotiating and when it comes to realignment -- all driven by
football.
You know we just don't want to deal with it anymore.
And you know you can..
You're putting out all kinds of fire.
Yeah, you know we would like to have had them stay.
But in the end, they're small, you know,
basketball schools with limited budgets.
They really didn't want to deal with that anymore.
And they thought that there might be more realignment.
And it turns out, they may not be for quite some time.
But at the time, it looked like, you know,
more dominos could go.
So at that point, Boise and San Diego stayed.
Well Boise decides it's leaving.
And Boise, you know, we had some issues there.
We still have some issues with Boise.
And we said look, we're not giving Boise a special deal.
We're going to keep this conference on even keel.
We're gonna create a foundation for this conference where
everybody's going to be dealt wtih equally.
That's the way you build for the future.
We're not gonna have one team, which may or may not be,
you know, the bell-weathered team down the road,
dominate things in terms of finances.
But think about where we were.
Again, instability, didn't know we'd even have a conference.
You know people were speculating every two weeks,
every two hours, every two minutes.
Are the Texas schools going to the Mountain West?
Are other schools going here?
And we all gathered together.
And I said to our group look, presidents and A-Ds.
I said look, we've got something good here.
This is a good group of schools.
All this is really are the schools have played football as
well as basketball.
The Big East schools, you know, we have to decide on the name.
But those basketball schools left because they just wanted to
play basketball.
And they didn't have much in common with a lot of these
schools.
And now we'e all aligned.
And we're actually, even without Boise,
you know we're fine.
We've got good football.
If we stay together, we're gonna be better off than if any of you
splinter off.
And they believed it, too.
And they were incredibly supportive.
And we started building it block by block.
Now the tv deal..
And that's what you had asked me about.
The problem was that we're, again,
that instability and other issues.
People thought other schools might leave.
It limited the amount of dollars we could get in tv.
It lowered the price.
It absolutely did.
And we know it.
And that's why you know we want to renegotiate down the road.
We want to, you know, talk about possibly extending,
possibly doing some things to get us to the level of value you
think we've earned.
But what happened to us though..
What happened in the tv negotiation..
We were able to generate a bid from another network,
which E-S-P-N had to match.
Okay?
And because E-S-P-N had to match it,
the other network -- it offered us unprecedented exposure.
I mean it was basically going to try to buy a gig at a relatively
reasonable price because of all that had happened.
Well when E-S-P-N matched, we automatically got this
incredible amount of exposure.
We had all 90 conference games in basketball are on E-S-P-N
platforms with a handful sold to C-B-S Sports Network in
sub-licensing deal.
We also have all our football games virtually now are gonna be
on tv.
We have a handful that will still be on E-S-P-N 3.
But most virtually all of them..
I think 58 out of 66 last year would have been on E-S-P-N
platforms under the new scenario.
And going forward, we're going to have more games,
probably have in the 70s.
Most of them will be E-S-P-N and A-B-C.
By the way, we have three A-B-C nationals guaranteed.
It is amazing exposure.
It's spread around all over the place.
Mike, this has been fascinating.
We like to wrap up all our interviews with something we
call five for the road.
So I need a quick answer to these question.
I'm gonna find out a little bit more about Mike Aresco.
Favorite professional sports team?
Front to back.
Okay, New York Giants.
New York Giants!
Favorite pro-athlete of all time?
Favorite pro-athlete of all time..
probably Mickey Mantle.
Yeah, the Mick.
You can't go wrong with that.
What's your favorite music or group or singer?
Oh, jeeze.
I always loved..
Oddly enough, I loved The Band.
The Band!
I always loved them.
Favorite movie of all time?
Favorite movie?
I think The Godfather I and II.
Three is not..
Yeah, my sons and I have watched that movie about 100 times.
You're probably the second, maybe even the third guest I've
had that has given Godfather I and II and said not Godfather
III.
Finally, your favorite tv show of all time?
Oh, favorite tv show of all time.
I used to love the old Mary Tyler Moore Show,
you know, with Ted Knight and obviously Mary Tyler Moore and
Ed Asner.
You know that was always one of my favorites.
But anyway.
That's a pretty good pop quiz though.
I'm glad I thought of something.
And you answered all of the questions.
You did very well.
We appreciate it.
And enjoy the rest of your stay in Memphis.
Greg, I've enjoyed it.
Thanks for having me and enjoy the week.
You, too.
We'll take a break.
Come back with Overtime right after this.
[theme music] ♪♪♪
Three..
Two..
One..
[buzzer sounds]
The recent Winter Olympic Games showed us the
skill of figure skating, the exhilaration of the bobsled and
the danger of downhill skiing.
There's also a sport that most of us have no idea what's taking
place.
That sport is curling.
And believe it or not, residents of the Mid-South can learn how
to play, like I did.
Certified instructor Larry Unterberger started the curling
program at the Mid-South Ice House in April of 2012,
and the sport is gaining in popularity.
Well Larry, what makes the sport of curling so enjoyable?
Well Greg, it's a really great people game.
It's a game where you can truly enjoy being with people that
you're with -- the camaraderie.
It's good exercise, good strategy.
It's a lot of fun.
It's a team sport.
I mean you want to do well individually but it's all about
a team effort, right?
It is truly a team sport.
Without getting in to too many of the rules but basically,
how do you play the game?
It's four people that play on a team.
Each person throws two stones or two rocks.
And at the end of that particular end or inning that
you play, the rocks that are closest to the center of that
bull's eye or that house win that end.
And at the end of ends, the one with the most points wins.
Since it's become an Olympic sport,
has popularity risen?
Truly, big time.
Do you think that people here in the South or in the Mid-South,
of course in Olive Branch..
Obviously you've had a number of people sign up to want to learn
curling from you and other instructors.
Do you think it's something that'll catch on not only here
but in other parts of the country,
especially in the South?
I do believe it is because you've got the relocation from
all the people up north.
And they want to play this game.
The unfortunate thing is you're playing it the different time of
the year.
Up north, we would end playing in March.
Here, you start playing in March.
The sport started in Scotland, right?
But it came over to the United States and the northern section
of the country when?
About early 1800s.
What was it that excited those people to see this sport where
you're knocking around things and you're on the ice and you're
not on skates?
This was a game that they used to play on the rivers,
frozen rivers.
They used to play with these rocks,
actual rocks.
That's how they got their name.
They were river rocks.
And it just caught on.
It became very social.
And it is really..
Since the Olympics, it's really become very,
very popular.
How long does a particular match or game take place?
How long is the length?
Recreationally, you have eight ends.
They last for about 15 minutes per end if you're playing
correctly.
So it'd be a two-hour game.
You talked about it being good exercise.
Explain that a little further.
The sweeping is very anaerobic.
So when you're out there, when you're standing on the ice for
two hours and you're sweeping, you get a good workout.
So some Scot came up with the idea that we're gonna throw this
stone and we're gonna pull out brooms and sweep and that'll
make it go faster.
What was the thought process in how they figured that out?
Well the thing is is it doesn't make it go faster.
It does make it go further because what they're doing is
they're moving the friction from a particular rock to make it go
longer, to make it go further.
And that's how the game..
That's how you have the nuances of the game.
So is the sweeping out impediment and making it
smoother?
No, what we do is we put..
They're like droplets on the ice.
We call it pebbling.
And it runs on top of those pebbles.
So when we sweep it, we run the pebbles down and it gets rid of
the pebbles.
And it gets rid of the friciton.
And that's how it makes it go further.
You're from Milwaukee.
You started curling.
Pretty interesting story back in 2000.
Tell everybody.
Started curling.
There was a sign, open house, a few minutes from my house.
I figured I'd try it.
Fell in love with it.
And when I moved here in 2011, I thought I'm never gonna curl
again.
I'm done.
There's no curlng here.
And fortunately, I found an opportunity.
I started a curling club down here.
And it's been very successful.
So it's going on two years?
We started it in April of 2012.
How do you advertise?
How do you let people know that this is taking place,
that curling lessons, instruction is happening here at
the Mid-South Ice House?
The Mid-South Ice House does most of their advertising via
Facebook, Twitter, that type of thing,
social media.
They do some radio advertising, some television.
Obviously the Olympics was a big pull for us this year.
We were on television tied to the Olympics.
That's the reason for the big influx now.
A lot of it's also grassroots.
People know people.
They tell friends.
They bring a friend.
You're a certified instructor.
When did you become?
When did you get the certification?
That was just prior so it's probably 2009.
And how do you get that?
What do you have to go through?
You go through a course.
I think it was a day or a day and a half through U-S-A Curl.
And it's a written course and also,
you know, on ice course.
And you continue to take more courses.
For those watching this segment who have no idea what curling
is, never saw it in the Olympics but are very interested in what
you're saying, give them a reason to want to come out here
and try this sport out.
Well I tell you what.
You come out here.
And it's like I tell everyone that comes through this,
these learn to curls.
If you're not having fun, let me know.
Come on out here and if you're not having fun,
let me know.
You will have fun.
All about fun.
But to become a pretty good curler,
how long would you estimate it to take?
It takes a long time.
It does not take long to become proficient,
to have fun.
If you want to get really good at it,
like anything else, you've got to practice.
Larry, thank you so much.
Thank you, Greg.
We appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thanks for coming out.
I enjoyed it.
That was tougher than you think but a whole heck of a lot of
fun.
Before we say goodbye, the University of Memphis announced
their 2014 Football schedule earlier this week.
The Tigers will open the season at home versus Austin Peay on
August 30th, much earlier than last year's opener.
Highlights of the first full month include road games at
U-C-L-A on September 6th and a visit to Ole Miss on the 27th,
the regional rivals meeting for the first time in five years.
The Tigers begin their second year in the American with an
October 4th roadie at Cincinnati.
The conference home opener is on the 11th versus Houston.
And the Tigers will host Tulsa on a special Friday Night
Halloween matchup.
November sees the Tigers playing at Temple,
as well as newcomer Tulane and finishing with home games
against U-S-F and U-Conn.
And that will do it for the show,
remember we return to our usual Thursday night 8:30 time slot
starting March 20th when our guest will be Memphis Tigers
Head Basketball Coach Josh Pastner.
So until then, have a great week and we'll see you next time.
[theme music] ♪♪♪
CLOSED CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY WKNO-MEMPHIS.