Hypothetical: If UConn MBB was entering the BE as a top team

[Hall2012]

Do you think those AAC fans would trade that absurd exit fee they are collecting (which includes a tighter divide of media revenue shares and windows) to have UConn back?

I think if UConn would’ve been producing like a top dog they wouldn’t think twice about splitting it 12 ways again. But I think there were some benefits the AAC got from this too. UConn leaving probably helps the 3 AAC teams they finished in front of.

They'd be split. The ones that care about basketball would want them back, but many of them would prefer to keep UConn as is anyway. The majority, however, likely wouldn't care unless UConn's handegg team got decent.

The reality is that UConn was the only team in the AAC with any sort of vision. While the rest of that league is still burning millions of dollars spinning their wheels in pursuit of the dangling carrot of the P5, UConn decided to start thinking with their heads and refocus their ambitions on a sport where national success is attainable. As part of that refocus, they decided to step off the hamster wheel and align themselves with schools sharing their realistic intent.

[GoldenWarrior11]

Do you think those AAC fans would trade that absurd exit fee they are collecting (which includes a tighter divide of media revenue shares and windows) to have UConn back?

I think if UConn would’ve been producing like a top dog they wouldn’t think twice about splitting it 12 ways again. But I think there were some benefits the AAC got from this too. UConn leaving probably helps the 3 AAC teams they finished in front of.

The $17 million in exit fees that will ultimately be split 11+2 ways (full members, plus Wichita State and Navy)? Oh boy, a little over a million bucks per member (paid-out over the course of several years until 2026) sounds like a real sweet deal to me.

In their respective first years in the American, guess who was the highest attended game for ECU, Tulane, UCF, SMU and Houston? Yep, you guessed it, it was UConn. So, for those bottom programs you indirectly reference, that's one less name-brand program that each of those teams will now have on the schedule. I mean, I guess it doesn't matter, since programs like Tulane, ECU, USF, UCF and SMU struggle to get fans to games anyways.

Bottom line, and to answer your question, yes they would pay that money to have UConn back. Why? Because no conference, whether you are the SEC or the Sun Belt, ever wants to have a member leave and/or removed. It either means a member found a better opportunity elsewhere, or the invitation to them in the first place didn't pan out like it was projected to (like Temple in the old Big East). Losing members gives the perception of instability to a conference - and for the legal successor to Big East Football, there is no buyout or exit fees high enough that will ever provide the security necessary to ensure stability into the future; every member in the AAC would/will jump to get out into the P5, and every member knows that.

[Xudash]

“every member in the AAC would/will jump to get out into the P5, and every member knows that.”

+1,000.