There's a trope on twitter that says "If UConn was P5-worthy, they would have been invited by now".
I'll invert that and say "If UConn could generate P5 revenue by self-producing content, they'd be doing it by now".
It's obvious that neither of those are the whole story. But UConn is in the AAC by necessity, and bound by the term of the contract. Nothing nelson has posted in this thread or, one imagines, anywhere in his hundreds of posts, addresses this point. If you want to talk about the next contract, that's fine. But nelson looks at the fact that UConn "chooses" to not break the contract (which, let's face it, is basically the same thing as paying an exit fee and going independent, which is sure to crash revenue EVEN FURTHER) and reads it as if UConn's administration is fine with the revenue hole. Logic is not your friend.
I am amazed at the ferocity of the defense of mediocrity.
If UConn was going to be invited to a P5 conference, they would have been invited by now. That doesn't mean UConn isn't P5 worthy, but it just isn't working out for us. We could pray for a miracle, or start taking steps to put UConn on a more competitive footing with the P5.
With your second point, if you believe that, it is a death sentence. If you think UConn is really worth $2MM a year, then the athletic program is not viable.
As for the rest of it, despite roughly 20 posts on this topic, you don't understand what I am saying, or you are choosing not to understand. I will try bullets:
1) UConn and the AAC should have never signed this contract, but at this point, I will agree that it is probably not worth it to break it.
2) UConn should take steps now for a post-ESPN world. ESPN's next contract will probably look like this one, and it will probably not be worth signing, for UConn or most of the AAC. Time to form a network. I don't care if you do it with the golf channel or TNT or whoever, just get your own network. If ESPN wants to broadcast games, they can purchase AAC content like any other broadcaster.
3) I do think there is strength in numbers, to a point. A joint TV and scheduling alliance with the MWC, Army and BYU probably makes sense. I think that the MAC, CUSA and Sun Belt could provide some value too. The G5 may produce 20 truly national games a year (almost all of them out of the AAC and CUSA), but there is a lot of regional value in the league and a lot of broadcasters out there looking for content that do not want to pay national prices.
As I have said, virtually any plan is better than what UConn is currently doing. If you have one, I am all ears.
One thing I would add is that if there is a buyout, the AAC should look into it. With a contract this thin, I suspect the buyout could be pretty small.