Pardon my ignorance on the topic of media deals, but what stops the AAC from forming its own network, and doing what the Big 10, ACC, and other conferences are doing? Obviously I’m missing something, but you would think the AAC conference gets a lot of eyeballs (increasing each year) considering the large swath of media markets it captures between Houston, Florida directionals, Memphis, Cincinnati, New England/NYC/NJ/Phili, not to mention the broad coverage generated by Navy. Wouldn’t the conference make more money setting up their own conference network? I see the conference getting better each year assuming no defections. And if all of the schools were making much more money with its own network, one would think defections would become less likely going forward.
I’m obviously overlooking something, or I would’ve heard this discussed. Can someone enlighten me on what I’m missing here?