Conference USA needs to form a scheduling alliance with the Mountain West--CBS' other Gang of 5 property. There would be alot of value in that. They need to first and foremost cut off scheduling the Sun Belt Conference, who benefits far more from scheduling CUSA then CUSA does from scheduling them.

This would force the Sun Belt to schedule non-conference mostly from the culturally different Mid-American Conference as it is unlikely the AAC would jump at the opportunity to form a scheduling alliance with the Sun Belt. The AAC would be too proud to do that since they consider the Sun Belt to be inferior.

Since it is clear that ESPN's properties are not diplomatic, CUSA and the Mountain West need to start cutting off ESPN properties in the Gang of 5. It would benefit them.