I hold no grudge towards the Catholic schools and their decision to go their separate ways. They did not initiate the destruction of the old BE. If UConn would have been invited as well as Ville the BE would have ended up in its current rendition and UConn would have taken an invite. And Georgetown worked really hard to encourage the Catholics to remain together with UConn, Cincy and USF.
The destruction was wrought by a lot of other entities and the Catholics were as much a victim as the remaining three football schools. They came out ahead in the contract with Fox and I'm happy for them. ND, Pitt and Georgetown voted down the initial offer ESPN made which might have kept things together. Georgetown because they sincerely thought the BE was worth more. ND because they had the NBC contract to fall back on which brings into question how they could be allowed to vote on this matter given they had less to lose if things went wrong. And then there is Pitt.
Their president was chairman of the BE presidents. He voted against the BE contract. Cuse accepted the contract. Both those schools had to have been in negotiation with the ACC at the time that contract was voted against. Cuse took the "honorable" position and was going to leave the remaining schools a decent monetary landing. Pitt screwed the pooch in every way possible.
So Cuse and Pitt announce they are leaving. WV gets an offer from the B12 and bolts, Rutgers gets an invite to the B!G and is still pinching itself. That left UConn with a hand extended by the ACC when Maryland said it was leaving. But a last minute pushback against tobacco road by the football ACC schools and a acrimonious attitude from those idiots to the northeast left UConn out and Ville in.
The real villains in this drama are the ACC, Pitt, ND and probably ESPN.
The AAC contract with ESPN is a joke. It's less than the old BE contract. The new BE members are making more money than UConn with the Fox contract. But the AAC contract is short term and the AAC's exposure on ESPN makes up for the loss of revenues compared to the BE and their exposure. Hopefully UConn ends up in a better conference, but until it does it has to hope that the AAC can develop quickly enough to get a significant increase in monies from some media outlet when the new contract comes up in the event the AAC is it's permanent home.