Big 12 misspells Cincinnati as 'Cincinatti' at conference's 2024 football media day

Last year, Cincinnati officially joined the Big 12, making its long-awaited return to one of college football’s power conferences following the dissolution of the Big East a decade earlier.

Apparently, the league is still getting acquainted with its relatively new member. At Big 12 football media days Tuesday in Las Vegas, each representative from what is now a 16-team conference had a display set up that was modeled after a locker, complete with the team’s jersey on a hanger, a helmet and a nameplate.

There was one problem with Cincinnati’s, however: The name on its nameplate was misspelled, so that it read the “University of Cincinatti.”

REQUIRED READING:Five things to know for Cincinnati Bearcats at Big 12 football media days

The gaffe is all the more baffling considering a jersey with the correct spelling of the name of the school and city is printed on the jersey hanging directly below the nameplate.

It’s not the first time the conference has botched the spelling of the city of one of its schools. Two years earlier at the league’s annual football media daym Fort Worth, Texas — the home of TCU — was spelled “Forth Worth” on a sign displayed at the event at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It is only 15 miles from Fort Worth.

According to a picture from Steve Helwick, a reporter at the event, the misspelled Cincinnati was later replaced with a nameplate featuring the name of punter Mason Fletcher, one of the Bearcats’ four player representatives at media day.

By early Wednesday afternoon, the mistake had been fixed, with a nameplate with the correct spelling of Cincinnati put on display.

As it tends to do, social media had fun with the error, with several commenters pointing out that they, too, struggle with the spelling of Cincinnati:

Big 12 misspells Cincinnati: Social media reactions

Following a disastrous debut season in the Big 12 in which they went 3-9 under first-year head coach Scott Satterfield — their fewest wins in a season since 1999 — the Bearcats have been picked by the media to finish 14th of 16 teams by the USA TODAY Sports Network preseason poll.