Does interest in increasing applicant pool factor in at all? That is, bracket athletics, TV dollars, and athletic recruiting for the moment, and look at the applicant pool of normal students. Would Boise St. or Houston be keenly interested in getting exposure in the Northeast and, vice versa, UConn get exposure in Texas in order to get more regular students interested in attending their schools? I imagine that issue is a factor, but don't know whether it's a tiny one or a significant one.
No one does because the situation is dynamic. We're all trying to predict events before they happen. And we all (media, fans, universities and conferences) assign different values to different parameters in coming up with value. But in the end value is part guess and part logic.
After the raid of BC, Miami and VT, a lot of people thought the ACC tremendously improved their football conference and thought there would be a minimum impact on the basketball side. They were touting the value 12 teams brought to a conference play off. They were predicting the ACC would become an elite conference. That prediction did not pan out. Outside of VT, the conference either went sideways or downwards in strength depending on who you ask.
Meanwhile everyone was laughing at the BE bringing in Conference USA teams. Well the BE held its own. It wasn't the choice of schools that hurt the conference. It was the inability to get cooperation by all the members to develop and promote the conference in an optimum way. This could be everything from the tension between bb only and football members, the imbalance ND brought to the conference, the inability to expand the football side of the conference, the inability to create barriers to leaving, the timing of the media contract, outside influences and so on.
I'm less concerned about the specifics in this latest movement by the BE. I actually believe the overall decision making is well thought out and gives the NBE its optimum chance of surviving and maybe developing itself into a decent brand. I'm qualifying this last sentence. I don't have pie in the sky illusions about the immediate impact of adding these teams. I'm well aware that outside factors will have a stronger impact on the survival of this hypothetical NBE configuration. But any other option offered regarding action or inaction by the BE imo is far worse.
No one is arguing that this configuration is better than an ACC invite if the invite was offered before the next BE media contract. But things can change over eighteen months and the NBE might develop increasing value with regards to the media and its football and bb content, that UConn may be forced to make a difficult decision of staying or leaving. That would be the best development from UConn's perspective.
And as BL points out, this potential redevelopment of the BE has to be considered by the ACC, and ESPN if you are conspiratorial inclined, and could force the ACC to make a move of inviting UConn sooner rather than later.
