A similar though less lucrative reason for ASU, Az or Colorado. But...

... it dies not mean the remaining 8 need to break apart and lose all power player capital. Adding the 4 most commonly mentioned names:

Houston
BYU
South or Central Florida (one of them)
Cincinnati, SDSU, UNLV, CSU, Memphis (one of them)

.. makes by far the mist sence because their potential markets are enormous compared to the farm and ranch communities of most of the eight left behind. Only TCI sits in any significant market, and WACO is in the Texas Triangle between Austin, San Antonio and Houston.

The B1g 12 stays a P5 player if it adds teans that are essentially equals or better, and the media footprints of the four most commonly mentioned are clearly better.

My question is do you take UCF (mosquito Florida) over South Florida (Cuban Florida). Programs can change quickly and frankly I think Cuban Florida us a lot better market unless ESPN can package Disney-Orlando and UCF all together as a destination city. In that respect I think Cincinnati brings little to the table but a P5 UNLV would bring a ton, is also a destination city, a rapidly expanding market (Clark County now tops 3 million peeps) and it would get better players and program money to compete right away.

My personal choices would be Houston, BYU, UCF and UNLV or SDSU, also a destination city, has 5-6 million peeps and makes the Big 12 a truly BIG 12 across the Continent. That brings bigger TV revenue.