This argument is bizarre. What whaler11 is saying is bascially accurate. I'm not even following what upstater is trying to argue.
If UConn is even getting $5 million in its Tier 3 TELEVISION rights, that's fantastic. Better than most schools. Better than virtually very school not named Texas. Tier 3 is basically what Tiers 1 and 2 don't take. That usually means 0-1 football games and somewhere around 5-8 basketball games. The only major conference that allows schools to retain Tier 3 television rights is the Big 12 (Hence the Longhorn Network). The Big 10 and Pac 12 bundle them in their own networks and the SEC soon will. The ACC sold them to ESPN, although even that deal has a ton of misinformation out there (for example, my understanding is women's basketball is treated differently than other sports)
So much of what often gets lumped into Tier 3 rights goes beyond the television rights. I'm not aware of any conference that has requires schools to lump non-Television Tier 3 rights (although the Pac-12 network may include some coach's shows).
In a hypothetical UConn to the ACC scenario, UConn would not forfeit $25 million. At worst, it would forfeit $5 million (not accounting for what it would gain in Tiers 1 and 2), and even that number is likely grossly inflated. The real number is probably no more the half that.
