I always thought that ESPN made the deal with BYU in an attempt to convince Texas to start their own network. ESPN has a goal to find money making programs and pay only for that program and not all the dead weight. When you deal with a conference you get stuck with all the dead weight of the conference (WSU, Utah, Iowa State, Syracuse, Northwestern and etc.). So ESPN could look at Texas and say "BYU is already doing this with us and they're fine."

Hence it made Texas feel easier about dealing with ESPN since they could already see the process done with BYU.