1) Because ESPN knows BYU's value will greatly enhance conference earnings for the losing programs that really don't pay the freight to carry them. On this count, Texas, Oklahoma and to a much lesser degree, programs like baylor, TCU and perhaps Oklahoma State pay the conference bills in football, and add Kansas in basketball. BYU would really become another Texas or Oklahoma earning far more revenue for its games when playing KSU, ISU or Texad Sech, etc. This is well established within ESPN's financial office.

2) Because of the financial realities of #1, BYU knows it has legs and so the current media deal was likely a form of compromise with a lot of quid pro quo's attached. It's no question that the Big XII mostly favored BYU when expansion was discussed before. And it also made sense for a while to see how sharing revenue among ten teams would be potentially better than whatever increase ESPN and FOX might offer should the conference add two more. But the most valuable commodity right up front is BYU. Then you look to other valuable markets perhaps and by the way, Las Vegas (UNLV) is looking more and more attractive as well since that city has blown up in size in the past few years. People are fleeing California for Las Vegas by the tens of thousands It's become a significant market. But getting hold of the Denver market again would be good, or possibly San Diego. We just need to stop thinking that a conference already bereft of huge markets (Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa really) is going to prosper in ESPN's mind without looking at California, Southern Nevada, Louisiana and Florida. As for BYU, its market potential is huge in similar ways that Notre Dame's is for NBC. So I think BYU is high on the radar if there IS any interest in expanding. But getting to 12 may be a real step, a first step anyway and 2023 is no longer that far off.

You see what the PAC has done. It's cleaned house in part because it's AD's are saying its commissioner was too darned weak and let the Presidents of the Universities push him around too much. The PAC and B12 will continue to compete for dominance in the Western half of the nation with the MWC an obvious target as its major media centers continue to grow (Sorry Boysenberry, you aren't in that running - yet). San Diego and the Central Valley of California are still growing and represent 8 million people between them. Las Vegas will approach 3 million people in the next decade. CSU is solid in a Northern Colorado market of about 5 million. Even Albuquerque is bigger than Boysenberry (even if half the homes have axels). Anyone that thinks what we see today is status quo is living in la la land. There will very likely be change coming for the next big P5 right negotian's and do not think the networks that pay the freight are not going to have a bigger say in who they will pay to make play one another. Change is likely.