I guess I don't. Maybe it is about money, but they're just really really bad at accomplishing their goals and continually make moves that contradict that goal.

They have an exclusive contract with NBC...worth $15M annually. I think it's well established that Notre Dame in a conference would be worth WELL more than that.

Here's the landscape when Notre Dame signed that deal in 2016.

In the previous few years before signing it, the Big 12 had signed a deal getting them $20M/yr/tm. A few years before that the PAC12 had agreed to a deal that paid out $21M/yr/tm.

The ACC deal was signed the at the same time and gave every ACC team (hello Syracuse, I'd forgotten you exist) $17M/yr (this is when Notre Dame agreed to only join the ACC for the next 20 years)

And that's to say nothing of the B1G deal signed this next year that gave every Big 10 school $31.4M/yr.

If Notre Dame was trying to get MORE money, any of those would have done it. Maybe now they will be forced to, when it's the difference between a $28M independence contract with NBC and $105M from a deal with Fox as part of the Big 10, but they're one of the few schools that have knowingly turned down money in realignment when they had the chance