Great point. What gets overlooked in a lot of this is that the networks have a finite number of windows for their games. Adding members to conferences they have deals with means more competition for those windows. Would ESPN prefer NC State-Stanford for a late window on ESPN2, relegating Iowa State-Arizona or Baylor-Colorado to ESPN+?
There‘s only so much airtime to go around, and with ESPN/Fox adding more ACC/B1G ”after dark” content to their plates, that’s not necessarily good for the B12.
I guess the choice is if ESPN wants to highlight road games of the 5-6 ACC programs with real fans on the west coast. They ESPECIALLY know this now that they are trying to get ESPN+ subscriptions.
There's no built in base fandom viewership for Wake @Cal. It would be a gamblers only viewership the way a late night San Jose St vs SDSU is.
Big 12's advantage is that there's built in fandom base viewership with everybody except maybe ASU it seems.