By Garth Shanklin
Sports Editor

It’s been the dark cloud hovering over Clifton since before the American Athletic Conference introduced itself to the world back in 2013. As soon as Louisville and West Virginia announced their intent to bolt from the Big East, fans and friends of the University of Cincinnati’s athletic programs began to want out.

The Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12, it didn’t matter: the Bearcats football program was on the rise, and with it the school’s notoriety among some of the larger programs in the college football landscape. Being stuck in what many perceive as a second-rank conference does nothing to help their cause, so changes need to be made.

That was three years ago. In the time since, the Big 12 has been shutout of the College Football Playoff because of what some believe was the lack of a conference championship game. Rumors swirl around the status of Oklahoma and Texas, both big-time schools who could be courted by other conferences.

After years of silence and no-comments, it finally appeared the Big 12’s leadership came to an agreement. Earlier this month, the conference held a meeting and, while no timetable was given or an official decision made, the leaders apparently came to an agreement that the current situation was “untenable.”

That sparked the wheels of realignment for the first time in a few years. Sure, nobody is actually going anywhere yet, but that hasn’t stopped fans of teams from Connecticut to Florida from speculating who the Big 12 will add to reach the magical number of 12.

Luckily for Bearcats fans, Cincinnati appears to be one of the candidates, but there is a lot of work to be done before the Bearcats can call themselves members of a power-five conference.

For starters, let’s compare the teams that are in the running. It may surprise you to know that one of the better investigative sites in terms of college football can be found on Reddit. The college football subreddit is extremely active, with over 160,000 members. As such, they tend to get a little wound up at times, especially in the offseason. If you manage to ignore the threads about which team is an iPhone, you’ll find a lot of useful statistical analysis done by users. One such user decided to compare average attendance and revenue for all the presumptive schools. Cincinnati had the fourth-highest average attendance out of the seven schools, trailing UCF, Connecticut and BYU, but that attendance number marked a 92 percent full stadium. BYU was at 94 percent, but no other school was higher than 81. Kansas was the lowest in the Big 12, with roughly 5,000 more fans attending their games than UC, but the stadium capacity was just 75 percent.

In terms of revenue, Cincinnati was second, bringing in just over $29 million. Connecticut brought in $44 million coming off the heels of a national championship season in basketball. If you were to add those two numbers together, you still wouldn’t have as much revenue as Iowa State, who brought in the least revenue in the conference at $73 million.

There are some flaws with the data above. For instance, Cincinnati added seats to Nippert Stadium for last year, and spent 2014 playing at Paul Brown, which holds roughly 20,000 more fans. Also, BYU did not disclose their financial records, making it impossible to compare.

Finances and attendance aside, there are other factors that go into choosing a team as well. The Bearcats have the support of Oklahoma president David Boren and West Virginia’s president, former Ohio State president Gordon Gee, has acknowledged the need for West Virginia to have a travel partner. Those two factors bode well for UC, but the school isn’t sitting on it’s laurels waiting for an invitation to magically appear.

Kroger and Macy’s have supported UC’s bid for the Big 12, similar to the support Memphis has from FedEx. The university has also actively sent promotional materials to the conference, which have been uncovered due to various open records requests.

Money, as it usually does, drives these kinds of decisions. The Big 12 has already acknowledged the fact that they’re financially behind the SEC and ACC, and something has to be done to fix that. Adding schools just to add them is a terrible idea, the right combination of geography, prestige, athletic ability and viewership is a must in order to get invited.

Cincinnati is a geographical fit, the university has the academic prestige necessary and the athletic programs are on the rise. In terms of viewership, the city is in the top-40 of television markets in the United States, though the concern is Ohio State’s domination of local programming. Regardless, Houston’s top-10 raking in terms of television viewership does nothing for the Big 12, since the conference has such a large presence in Texas already.

It’s a fluid situation, and with more meetings taking place this week we may actually see some clarity. Or we may not, and this could drag on for months. Either way, Bearcats fans need to have their fingers crossed.