Big Ten-bound Rutgers will pay $11.5M exit fee to American Athletic Conference

Rutgers will reportedly pay an $11.5 million exit fee to leave the AAC. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) As it prepares to join the Big Ten, Rutgers is set to pay

Rutgers will reportedly pay an $11.5 million exit fee to leave the AAC. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

As it prepares to join the Big Ten, Rutgers is set to pay an $11.5 million exit fee to leave the American Athletic Conference, according to ESPN's Brett McMurphy.

Per McMurphy, the AAC sought $15 million from Rutgers. Earlier this month, Rutgers agreed to settle a lawsuit with the former Big East conference over the original $15 million exit fee.

Not long after the school announced its plan to realign to Big Ten, Rutgers filed a lawsuit arguing that it should not have to pay the full exit fee. The school also did not want to wait the required 27 months before leaving, arguing that other schools had been able to bypass similar policies in the past.

In November, Louisville reached an agreement to jump to the ACC with an $11 million exit fee, short of the $15 million requested by the AAC. The Cardinals' negotiations helped Rutgers land a lower exit fee, McMurphy reports.