There's a lot of folks out there who are absolutely convinced that BYU would be in multiple different P5 conferences if it weren't for the religious aspect.

I've looked through a lot of financial data, on-field data, and TV data and I don't think that's the only (or even a driving) cause, but in the interest of hitting everything, I'm going to at least mention that some folks believe it to be a factor (or a contributing factor)