Big 12 expansion momentum appears dead, and died because the Big 12 would rather have no schools than UConn. If the P5 league that is essentially on life support itself decided that it would rather do nothing than add UConn, the Huskies have their answer on whether they are a candidate for a P5 conference in the foreseeable future.
Doing nothing is a death sentence, so that is not an option. The athletic program can not financially support its current cost base with the revenue it is receiving. ESPN places almost no value on the AAC television content, so there is no point in continuing to sell it.
Trying to raid the MWC will likely be unsuccessful and wouldn't accomplish anything even if it happened. Putting San Diego State, BYU or Boise State in the AAC is just a version of moving deck chairs on the Titanic, and there is no reason for the western schools to do anything. I think the traditional conference structure does not bring a lot of value to UConn or many of the G5 schools.
That said, Boise and BYU's situation, with separate contracts from ESPN, shine a light into an alternative solution. It is evidence that for some G5 schools, and I would argue many of them, the value of the whole conference is significantly less than the sum of their individual parts. I would be surprised if almost every AAC school wouldn't be better off controlling its own content and selling it separately than they are selling their content as a group to ESPN. It could be argued that, at the very least, they don't have anything to lose by trying.
I also think the G5 schools should negotiate collectively with the networks for whatever national content they can produce. Finally, all the G5 conferences are a hodge podge of teams in overlapping geographies. It may make sense to consolidate scheduling within the conferences into a combination of Tiered and Regional scheduling. The top tier programs from the G5 should play each other more, but the schools should also not be locked into scheduling distant programs that have little rivalry value and are not marquee games for TV. You could even hold open dates at the end of the season to better match up the top tier G5 programs in marquee games.
I think the G5 schools should consolidate top tier content and negotiate collectively with TV for that content, while also leaving individual schools the ability to cut separate deals with local broadcasters. UConn has to come up with something if it wants to survive, and #begharder is not working.
