In 2009, former Akron athletic director Mack Rhoades, who negotiated the current ESPN deal with then-commissioner Rick Chryst, said ESPN greatly valued the MAC. Unlike most conferences that have a broad regional or national membership footprint, the MAC is predominantly an Ohio-Michigan league, meaning it must find ways to be more nationally appealing for TV.

Mid-week games did that for football, as the likes of Central Michigan, Northern Illinois and Ohio University became familiar to the public. ESPN's BracketBuster, which came to an end in 2012, did that for basketball as a Kent State game was part of that TV product every year but one in its 10-year run.

http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/index.ssf/2014/08/mid-american_conference_and_es.html


Those MACtion games have simply been huge for us. Particularly when the lockout (NBA I think) happened and we got solid play on the main ESPN station.  Timed with our success on the field, it very quickly made much of the nation aware of OHIO.

When we played Louisville last year, it was very interesting reading the USAT article about their ties with ESPN and how their program growth into a national power was closely tied to their allegiance with ESPN.

Again, the money is important but there is something to be said about the audience ESPN provides. ESPN is big-time. End of story.

 

A few points here on the two deals....

- CUSA deal is with Fox for primary and CBS for secondary and it pays the conference about 15 million per year.  Clearly less than we are getting paid, but when you look at the media markets....it makes some sense.  The MAC is very regional, and CUSA still has the name appeal of being bigger than the MAC.
- ESPN has much more name draw than Fox or CBS.  ESPN also takes care of their schools via SportsCenter.  When you are casually looking for sports...where do you go? Espn.  
-  Digital is the trend of the future and it certainly gives the MAC great exposure throughout the year here.  
-  We also don't know what ability the schools may have to produce shoulder programming(Coach Shows, Weekly Recaps).  My guess is OU will announce a deeper partnership with Evan Shaw and crew up the hill.
- Long Term is the safe bet.  Who knows what will happen in 5 years when the CUSA deal is up?  With this deal, the growth can be steady to develop the digital side of things.
-   FIU and FAU are garbage, but MTSU is a top tier mid major in major market.  ODU is on the rise and has a strong Basketball history.

In a nutshell, your argument is way off base.  CUSA is still viewed as a superior conference, Weeknights can be a good thing, and digital streaming is the future.