If the BOT feels that sports are wasting church funds, they will drop it. For example, my brother worked at Beneficial Life, which is a church owned Life Insurance company. He worked in their corporate head quarters and was very involved with some key decisions. He talked about going into a meeting with President Hinckley as they reported that Beneficial were projecting losses, due to the company investing it's assets into what turned out to be sub-prime mortgages, of up to $600,000,000 as these different mortgages were looking to default. This meeting was essentially to ask that the church infuse or at least pledge $600mm against these potential losses so the company would not get crushed by the ratings agencies, rendering the company in a very bad spot, whereas up to that point had been a bit of a darling in it's niche based on how it was run.

President Hinckley, if you ever had any "business" dealings with him, wasn't always the cute grandpa with a cane. My bro described what it's like to get ripped a new one by a Prophet of God and he said President Hinckley was very protective of church funds--especially tithing. The leaders of Beneficial explained that at that point, their products were very competitive and they were having records sales revenues, so this money would just be used to put the rating companies at ease. They also explained that in order to play with the big boys of the industry they needed to spend a little more so they can continue to play in that space. I'm paraphrasing long discussions we had.

The money was pledged; however, it is interesting to note, that almost exactly a year later, the BOT determined to get out of the financial world, even though Beneficial very quickly paid back that loan. But the BOT felt Beneficial no longer served the purpose it once filled (there were no other options available in the UT territory when it was created in 1905) and probably more importantly, the risk/reward was no longer worth it. They realized that all it would take is one random insurance guy to screw some people over, while putting his hand on his heart and saying he worked for a church-owned company, to bring a whole lot of bad press and ill will on the church. And they could see that they would have to continue to infuse a lot of money into this company to continue to be relevant. So at a time when Beneficial was having historic revenues and profits, the BOT pulled the plug and now it only exists to service the policies it has in force. Now I'm skipping a lot of details and specifics, so I don't want to get into a thumb-wrestle over that, but here is my point:

The church will continue to invest in BYU sports as long as it remains a good risk/reward proposition for it's funding and its reputation. The church always does it right--meaning, if they are going to build something, they will make sure it's top of the line quality and effective. They are not perfect, but they really do have a good track record with "business" decisions and when they have made mistakes they are quick to learn from it and improve upon it. If they see BYU sports as a good source of recognition and representation, they will invest or facilitate investment in it to keep it relevant. This includes their stance on joining or not joining certain conferences.

So it's comical to read some of the Jackbucks on here who think it's all so simple and the church is clueless or not keeping up. Know that the church will protects it's interests in a similar way they did with the SLC downtown renovation--they didn't invest in that because they love retail. They were protecting their current assets--Temple Square.

That is all I have to say about that.