You are correct of course, but also I think with the additional revenues, UConn could put a lot of the funds towards a new (upgraded/expanded) stadium and really (hopefully) move the football program in the right direction.
It is maybe like a chicken/egg sort of thing. They aren't interested in us because our football program is B-league, but we don't have the funds to just expand it without an additional revenue stream. I'm probably simplifying the issue, but I'm quite sure UConn would make a huge effort to beef up football should they get invited. It would be like Christmas morning for the program.
Coach Mora has said that not being in a conference and not having an on-campus stadium are the two biggest challenges to the football program currently.
Being in a "power" football conference brings a lot of benefits, many of them monetary, though not all of them. The first is that the media distributions from those conferences are substantially higher than the 4 million that we currently get under our big easy deal or the estimated $7 1/2 million that we will get under the new deal. I believe that the big 12 and the ACC both have a per school annual distribution of about $35 million for broadcast rights. It may be slightly higher than that.
In addition to the broadcast rights distributions each power conference member is entitled to a share of the college football playoffs annual earnings, which I believe are an additional $15 million per per school. These two items result in a jump from our current $4 to $5 million to $50 million per year. A sizable increase.
In addition to that, one would presume that with power conference membership would come more fan interest in the program. Certainly, the games we schedule against power conference members have been the games that have the highest attendance. Filling Rentschler field to capacity would mean 40,000 fans six times a year. Even at a relatively modest ticket price of $25 that would be an additional $6 million a year. It's worth noting that the last time Connecticut was in a "power" football conference was when the big east was a member of the "BCS" prior to the break up. During that time Renschler field was sold out 30 times in had many more games at 38,000+ attendance.