conference. None. BYU earns in a SINGLE football game with ESPN what we used to get as a member of the MWC for all sports. ESPN has worked to help put together a far improved inventory of home games for the next TV contract. There is very little chance that ESPN will opt to not re-sign BYU when we have a bunch of great, marquis-type games on the home schedule coming up. There is actually a very good chance that BYU will get a very nice raise with the next TV deal. And if ESPN decides to not broadcast our home games, someone else will. Even if we just used BYUtv to broadcast the games, we'd make more money than we would in the MWC. The days of BYU being bound and restricted by a weak TV deal in a G5 conference are over. The ONLY way I could ever see BYU heading back to a G5 conference would be if they let us keep a very significant portion of our media rights. Otherwise, it would make absolutely no economic sense.

Serious question: Have you seen how much BYU athletic's income has risen these past few years as independent/WCC? We're pulling in some $20million more dollars now than we were just a few years ago in our last year in the MWC. We may not be making P5 money (well, we actually do make as much as a few of the P5 programs), but we are making significantly more than the G5 guys.