Could you expound on that a little? On the surface it sounds nutty without your rationale.
The raid was timed to cause the maximum amount of damage. The Big East had signed a lousy TV contract in the late 90's because Miami was on probation and looked to be on its way to the Death Penalty, and the rest of the league was at its nadir competitively in football, and other than UConn and Syracuse, basketball had declined too. When the Big East was coming back to negotiations with ESPN, Miami and BCU worked with the ACC and ESPN, sharing confidential information, to undermine the Big East's negotiating position.
Tranghese found out and went public. With the raid, the Big East was about to get thrown out of the BCS. The Catholics would have left, we would have had to join CUSA, and Calhoun and Auriemma would likely have hit the road. The lawsuit saved the league, and kept the Big East as a BCS conference. The conference had a great run in the 2000's until 2012. UConn won 2 championships and made another Final Four, in addition to a Fiesta Bowl. That lawsuit was the best thing that happened to us.
Since then? We got raided again at the next TV negotiation in 2011. At one point, it looked like the Big 12 might merge into the Big East. The threat of a lawsuit played a role in getting Rutgers, WVU, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville and the Catholics a soft landing. UConn ended up on the outside, and we should have rattled some cages. Part of the reason we ended up on the outside was that the old line ACC schools told UConn's administration that our invitation to the ACC was imminent. Louisville out-hustled us. It had nothing to do with the lawsuit.
Since then, every serious lawsuit against the NCAA or college athletics has won. While
@ZooCougar has made multiple posts trying to make this thread political, how about this for politics? Alston, the case which basically annihilated the legal foundation of the NCAA's ability to be a monopoly, was a unanimous decision. The most divided court since before the Civil War ruled 9-0 that the NCAA/BCS/CFP/P4 is a living, breathing, anti-trust violation. Just like Blumenthal said it was in 2003.
Zoo and I have been having the same argument for 23 years, and I can't think of an argument that has been decided so decisively in the history of the internet.