I say expand all you want with Rutgers, Boston College, Indiana, Iowa State, Vanderbilt, FAU, FIU, etc.....But football fans won't watch low tier match ups at the rate that they watch better games. And eventually demand will have a meaning. Right now you can strng arm folks into paying for a cable channel that they don't watch. That may not be quite as true some time in the future.
The SEC just three years ago, distributed less conference revenue than the ACC....but the SEC was on a tear, winning 7 straight national championships. Now adding an eighth.
And SEC fans watch their teams play...watch big match ups...Alabama-LSU, Alabama-Auburn, Georgia-Florida, etc. It was that watching that made the SEC money in their contract revision and network, not vice versa.
Alabama had money before any contract increase....last year, if you subtracted $30 million from Bama's athletic budget...they still had more athletic department revenue than Georgia, South Carolina, Michigan State, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Purdue, UCLA, Clemson and the like.
Of the Ten Most Watched Football Games of 2014...
#1 Alabama-Auburn
#3 Alabama-Missouri
#4 Miss State-Alabama
#6 Bama-LSU
#9 Florida-Alabama
#10 Texas A&M-Auburn
That's the power of the SEC....games that people watch.