(06-26-2019 10:07 AM)Billy Bob Bearcat Wrote:  Cincinnati has some of the best regional recruiting in the country for Football. The University knows that it would be foolish to jeopardize what could potentially be a top 25 program every year for what, a Big East that actually pays less money? UC isn't killing off football like UConn, so it is an easy hard pass.

Also don't pretend like independence is going to bring in millions on a tv contract. Who is paying for that outside of ND and BYU?

BYU gets what, abouy 6m a year from ESPN for football?

I think indy Cincy is worth 4m. At that rate, the money w/Big East is better than the Aresco.deal.

Temple, maybe, now that they're alone on an island. Cincy should join WVU in the B12 (reminds me, I need to take my vitamins). If Louisville is P5 there's no reason UC shouldn't be.

(06-25-2019 09:40 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 08:50 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 08:44 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 08:36 PM)johnintx Wrote:  No. Their football program has a pulse.

If a P5 conference looks to expand from the ranks of the G5, Cincinnati has a chance to move. They're not a slam dunk, but they have a chance. As long as they have a chance to move to a P5 conference, they need to stay where they are.

Yes, and we're on the upswing. There is a legit shot at winning the conference chip and getting the Cotton Bowl invite this year. That would do wonders for our profile not seen since the Brian Kelly era. Cincinnati has invested too much in facilities and the football program in general to not stay alive for a shot at a better conference. If that doesn't come after 2025 then check back on this...

When I said No, I meant to say they shouldn't move to the Big East. Cincinnati needs to stay in the AAC until a better opportunity comes about. UConn realized that their P5 dream was over, and moved to the BE. The P5 dream isn't over for Cincinnati.

I disagree. While as a Big East fan i am 95% happy that UConn is coming back, 5% of me is curcumspect, because for the first time, we now have a member for whom the Big East is not the destination conference.

IOWs, i do not think UConn has given up on P5 in the least, they just think the Big East is a better platform from which to achieve it than the AAC proved to be.

This.

I don't think the Big East wants a school who is a potential P5 candidate. They don't want to lose members in the future.

The Big East would rather take Dayton or VCU than a school with a decent football program.

I think the only way the Big East would take Cincinnati is if UConn & UC were working together to find a football landing spot. The BE wants UConn badly enough that they'd take UC along as a package deal. But that's not what happening.

(06-26-2019 09:19 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 08:49 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  Aside from any financial implications, Cincinnati is associated with many institutions that it is had long relationships with (much longer than anyone in the Big East). Their conference affiliation with USF and Memphis dates back to the early 1990's; Tulane from the mid 1970's; Houston and ECU from the mid 1990's; Soon, they will have shared a conference with schools like UCF, Temple, SMU and Tulsa longer than anyone that had in the Big East.

If you tossed in a school like Louisville with that current membership (and UC fans can obviously correct me if I am wrong), I would think that would have been a realistic and optimal conference set-up for them moving forward (member-wise, assuming it had access to the CFP and appropriate $$$ figures).

We've had off and on relations with most of those schools, but nobody consistently. Its part-in-parcel of bouncing around in so many conferences over the years. You as a Marquette fan should know this as well I do-- you guys were in the Great Midwest and C-USA with us.

The truth of the matter is (and I am not trying to besmirch any of the institutions in the AAC) our fans don't give a crap about anyone in the conference and we want to play at the highest level. The Big East, which included the quartet of Ohio River schools UC, Louisville, Pitt and WV was perfect for us and energized the casual fan base and got people in other corners of Ohio interested in UC athletics. The ideal situation for us would include a couple of the schools mentioned (again taking nothing away from UCF, Houston and Memphis which have fine athletic programs).

This. UC would prefer the relationships in the Big East. Our out-of-state students come from the eastern half of the Midwest & the East Coast, not the South.

And despite football's popularity, we're still a basketball-first school.

But we're not basketball-only like UConn is, so we won't abandon football. We might think about jumping to the Big East if AAC football was like 1995-2003 C-USA, but the AAC has turned into a pretty decent football league so that's out of the question.

(06-26-2019 09:39 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  UConn is not going to make a profit from this move:

- They likely will have to pay the AAC exit fee and legal fees
- There is going to be costs associated with rebranding
- A flight to Xavier is really not much cheaper than a flight to Houston
- No matter how we twist things, the Big East makes less money
- Their football team was losing money with a decent schedule.

This move simply does not make sense unless they secretly plan on ending their football team in the future. If they did that then this would be a fantastic move for UConn.

1.) Fox is rumored to be paying a significant portion of the exit/entry fees (in order to get their content for next year).
2.) Not sure what you mean by rebranding. UConn's brand is very much already Big East-focused. Do you mean field/court logos? This would hardly be a significant cost (and one that I would feel that the Big East would also help out with).
3.) UConn is now adding five bus trip opportunities to its Olympic sports. It was spending over $7 million in travel while in the American. This will significantly go down for all other sports.
4.) The rumored new deal for the Big East will be at least $6 million per year (with the addition of UConn). This does not take into account the better (and longer) tournament credits that the league has over the AAC, the more fan interest the conference has over the AAC (for UConn) and the significant bump in regional games that fans now get to travel to. When it's all added up, UConn will be making the the same (if not more) when you add in all of the new revenue sources and subtracted costs. This is all not counting football - which was forced to play a national schedule while located in a Southern-based conference.
5.) Their football program was losing money with a decent schedule. This was because the payouts the American was providing couldn't meet the costs that were going out. Couple that with the reality that the AAC/ESPN was now forcing its members to watch a substantial amount of games behind a paywall, and was being forced to relinquish its T3 rights, the time was now to make a move.

UConn always had an open door invitation to return to the Big East. Informal discussions were always there dating back to 2013-14 (which is why so many journalists/analysts always floated this as a possibility). The new TV deal was the final nail into the coffin for UConn's membership in the AAC (which was never sustainable to begin with long-term). Their time in the AAC was, one way or another, going to be a stop-gap until another path could be found.

(06-26-2019 10:43 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 09:19 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 08:49 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  Aside from any financial implications, Cincinnati is associated with many institutions that it is had long relationships with (much longer than anyone in the Big East). Their conference affiliation with USF and Memphis dates back to the early 1990's; Tulane from the mid 1970's; Houston and ECU from the mid 1990's; Soon, they will have shared a conference with schools like UCF, Temple, SMU and Tulsa longer than anyone that had in the Big East.

If you tossed in a school like Louisville with that current membership (and UC fans can obviously correct me if I am wrong), I would think that would have been a realistic and optimal conference set-up for them moving forward (member-wise, assuming it had access to the CFP and appropriate $$$ figures).

We've had off and on relations with most of those schools, but nobody consistently. Its part-in-parcel of bouncing around in so many conferences over the years. You as a Marquette fan should know this as well I do-- you guys were in the Great Midwest and C-USA with us.

The truth of the matter is (and I am not trying to besmirch any of the institutions in the AAC) our fans don't give a crap about anyone in the conference and we want to play at the highest level. The Big East, which included the quartet of Ohio River schools UC, Louisville, Pitt and WV was perfect for us and energized the casual fan base and got people in other corners of Ohio interested in UC athletics. The ideal situation for us would include a couple of the schools mentioned (again taking nothing away from UCF, Houston and Memphis which have fine athletic programs).

This. UC would prefer the relationships in the Big East. Our out-of-state students come from the eastern half of the Midwest & the East Coast, not the South.

And despite football's popularity, we're still a basketball-first school.

But we're not basketball-only like UConn is, so we won't abandon football. We might think about jumping to the Big East if AAC football was like 1995-2003 C-USA, but the AAC has turned into a pretty decent football league so that's out of the question.

I think in a perfect world, most of the teams in the Big East 2.1 (05-13) probably found it to be near ideal for most members, if as stated the money and access were equal. You had a group of similarly competitive football programs, with the then 4 core teams (in terms of geogrpahy) all relatively geographically close, with a near unmatched basketball conference to boot, with the finale at MSG.

Sure the teams that left have absolutely no complaints about where they are, versus where they were,because it was never a "perfect world," but I'd imagine for Cincy, s just an observant neighbor, an ideal conference (again all things being equal would be some combination of the Big East and Metro Conferences.

But since it's not, it's ACC/Big 12 or bust I assume.

(06-26-2019 10:46 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 09:39 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  UConn is not going to make a profit from this move:

- They likely will have to pay the AAC exit fee and legal fees
- There is going to be costs associated with rebranding
- A flight to Xavier is really not much cheaper than a flight to Houston
- No matter how we twist things, the Big East makes less money
- Their football team was losing money with a decent schedule.

This move simply does not make sense unless they secretly plan on ending their football team in the future. If they did that then this would be a fantastic move for UConn.

1.) Fox is rumored to be paying a significant portion of the exit/entry fees (in order to get their content for next year).
2.) Not sure what you mean by rebranding. UConn's brand is very much already Big East-focused. Do you mean field/court logos? This would hardly be a significant cost (and one that I would feel that the Big East would also help out with).
3.) UConn is now adding five bus trip opportunities to its Olympic sports. It was spending over $7 million in travel while in the American. This will significantly go down for all other sports.
4.) The rumored new deal for the Big East will be at least $6 million per year (with the addition of UConn). This does not take into account the better (and longer) tournament credits that the league has over the AAC, the more fan interest the conference has over the AAC (for UConn) and the significant bump in regional games that fans now get to travel to. When it's all added up, UConn will be making the the same (if not more) when you add in all of the new revenue sources and subtracted costs. This is all not counting football - which was forced to play a national schedule while located in a Southern-based conference.
5.) Their football program was losing money with a decent schedule. This was because the payouts the American was providing couldn't meet the costs that were going out. Couple that with the reality that the AAC/ESPN was now forcing its members to watch a substantial amount of games behind a paywall, and was being forced to relinquish its T3 rights, the time was now to make a move.

UConn always had an open door invitation to return to the Big East. Informal discussions were always there dating back to 2013-14 (which is why so many journalists/analysts always floated this as a possibility). The new TV deal was the final nail into the coffin for UConn's membership in the AAC (which was never sustainable to begin with long-term). Their time in the AAC was, one way or another, going to be a stop-gap until another path could be found.

1. Rumors not facts.
2. If saving money on travel is a big deal then every cost matters. Buying new jerseys, painting fields, removing banners, etc is not cheap. Paying someone to paint one room in a house is expensive.
3. These bus trips you speak of are illogical. I can buy into a bus trip to the three schools near Hatford. But Villanova and Georgetown are bus trips? By that logic Temple would have been a bus trip and Navy.
4. Rumors again.
5. But UConn is not cancelling football so the cost of having a football team remains. Now they have the same problem with less money and will become UMASS who can't even string together a .500 season.

Listen, I'm not saying that this move is not something that was not good for UConn. They were never going to become a P5 team no matter how much they want to. And their traditional rivals are mostly in the Big East. I'm simply saying we need to stop pretending like this is not going to be a massive loss in money. This is more about rekindling relationships and trying to focus on what they are actually good at.

No one will be surprised if UConn announces they are cancelling the football program. If they cancel football they save millions of dollars. And they can scrap a few women's teams that title IX forced them to make.

(06-26-2019 10:12 AM)orangefan Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 08:17 PM)gulfcoastgal Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 08:12 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  What about Memphis could they be accepted into the BE?

They have the FB stadium to be a serious player as an indy.

No, the Big East wouldn’t extend an invite, and it wouldn’t be feasible on the FB front.

If Memphis had interest, they would be the best additional pick out of the AAC. They likely to have a longer term view on the AAC to meet its football needs, and don't face the same travel problems that UConn faces. Also, as discussed elsewhere, the Big East appears to really want to maintain a full round robin schedule.

Yeah, the situations are different. On the athletic front, both are predominately known for basketball, but culture and geography couldn't be more different. One is a bball school located smack dab in fball crazy SEC country while the other is in the NE where bball reigns supreme and college fball takes a backseat.

I'm sure fans would be thrilled to play some BE teams, and Penny has mentioned having talks with Georgetown about a series in the future. The school finally committed to fball and is now starting to reap those rewards. This will be the first year both programs are expected/have a chance at top 25 seasons at the same time. I totally get why UCONN wants back with their old friends and foes. It really does make sense and should be good for the fanbase.

Memphis is different in that it has a history of conference change. Bball has finished top 25 in attendance under multiple coaches in multiple conferences and looks to back to form in the AAC (national buzz is back, now need to perform). Poor on court performance affects attendance more so than conference affiliation...a possible effect of conference jumping, idk? Heck, there was a time when Tiger bball funded Tiger fball! It'll never get back to that, but fball has zero chance of survival outside a conference. The AAC has been very good to Memphis from an exposure standpoint. There's no way Tiger fball would be able to get multiple ABC or other OTA games per year on its own.

(06-26-2019 10:16 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 10:07 AM)Billy Bob Bearcat Wrote:  Cincinnati has some of the best regional recruiting in the country for Football. The University knows that it would be foolish to jeopardize what could potentially be a top 25 program every year for what, a Big East that actually pays less money? UC isn't killing off football like UConn, so it is an easy hard pass.

Also don't pretend like independence is going to bring in millions on a tv contract. Who is paying for that outside of ND and BYU?

BYU gets what, abouy 6m a year from ESPN for football?

I think indy Cincy is worth 4m. At that rate, the money w/Big East is better than the Aresco.deal.

BYU gets 4 million half of the aac deal with their own network. The big east died, just let it go.

(06-26-2019 12:10 PM)TheBigEastSucks Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 10:16 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 10:07 AM)Billy Bob Bearcat Wrote:  Cincinnati has some of the best regional recruiting in the country for Football. The University knows that it would be foolish to jeopardize what could potentially be a top 25 program every year for what, a Big East that actually pays less money? UC isn't killing off football like UConn, so it is an easy hard pass.

Also don't pretend like independence is going to bring in millions on a tv contract. Who is paying for that outside of ND and BYU?

BYU gets what, abouy 6m a year from ESPN for football?

I think indy Cincy is worth 4m. At that rate, the money w/Big East is better than the Aresco.deal.

BYU gets 4 million half of the aac deal with their own network. The big east died, just let it go.

BYU’s deal bottoms out around 4 but can be much higher depending on how many neutral site games there are, how many home games hit abc, how many hit ESPN/2, or espnu.

And it’s about to renegotiate so expect that floor to rise a bit.

(06-26-2019 01:22 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 12:10 PM)TheBigEastSucks Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 10:16 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 10:07 AM)Billy Bob Bearcat Wrote:  Cincinnati has some of the best regional recruiting in the country for Football. The University knows that it would be foolish to jeopardize what could potentially be a top 25 program every year for what, a Big East that actually pays less money? UC isn't killing off football like UConn, so it is an easy hard pass.

Also don't pretend like independence is going to bring in millions on a tv contract. Who is paying for that outside of ND and BYU?

BYU gets what, abouy 6m a year from ESPN for football?

I think indy Cincy is worth 4m. At that rate, the money w/Big East is better than the Aresco.deal.

BYU gets 4 million half of the aac deal with their own network. The big east died, just let it go.

BYU’s deal bottoms out around 4 but can be much higher depending on how many neutral site games there are, how many home games hit abc, how many hit ESPN/2, or espnu.

And it’s about to renegotiate so expect that floor to rise a bit.

They are working on new contract so agree, but will be below the AAC deal. They basically have no chance at the ny6 bowl which would be the biggest bump and ncaa tourney credits. My point was UC won’t get what a whole religious group with their own network will net, so them joining big east is just ludicrous.

I am sorry......did someone actually say UCONN can get $4 million a year for a football only contract?

(06-26-2019 11:16 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 10:46 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  3.) UConn is now adding five bus trip opportunities to its Olympic sports. It was spending over $7 million in travel while in the American. This will significantly go down for all other sports.

3. These bus trips you speak of are illogical. I can buy into a bus trip to the three schools near Hatford. But Villanova and Georgetown are bus trips? By that logic Temple would have been a bus trip and Navy.

For the record, the bus trips are legit for Olympic sports, which usually fly commercial. Not only does it cost more than a flight, but when you add in actual time sitting in an airport, and time to and from aiport, getting bags, etc, it can actually take longer to fly than to drive for anything 5 hours or less. Add in the cost, and flexibility of when to leave, and that is legit.

Basketball team likely won't take a bus outside of the region, since they usually have charter flights, but that does save time and money for the other sports. There is also the issue of fans being able to travel to those events the same way.

One other thing to keep in mind football-wise, in terms of cost, is not only do you fly the teams everywhere, but you truck your equipment, which can be 1-3 trucks worth, to every game. I am not sure if Uconn's football travel will be any less, but that does add up. Shipping them an average of 1700 miles each way, versus a more regional schedule that might be half of that

(06-25-2019 08:07 PM)Bogg Wrote:  I think X freezes them out.

That would be hillarious!

(06-26-2019 10:18 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  If Louisville is P5 there's no reason UC shouldn't be.

As a total outsider, that is my view.

(06-26-2019 11:16 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  3. These bus trips you speak of are illogical. I can buy into a bus trip to the three schools near Hatford. But Villanova and Georgetown are bus trips?

Wait ... you thought they weren't? Philadelphia is a 5 hour drive according to google maps. That's a bus trip. Georgetown is 7 hours ... for Olympic sports, that's a bus trip too.

Quote: By that logic Temple would have been a bus trip and Navy.

Yes, of course Temple is a bus trip for Olympic sports, but it's about the only one ... Navy is a FB-only school, so it doesn't help with Olympic sports travel costs.

If UConn's budget says their travel costs are $7m, you cannot at the same time trumpet the $7m/school of the AAC media deal and also dismiss the travel costs as being equivalent to the cost of painting a room. If $7m in revenue is substantial, then so is $7m in costs.

Since everybody is leaving for the BE should Temple go back to the MAC with UMASS for all sports. Temple would not need to build that OC stadium which no one has heard about in months and they could play their football in that Soccer Stadium in Chester to get out from under the outrageous Eagle rental requests.

(06-26-2019 01:39 PM)TheBigEastSucks Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 01:22 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 12:10 PM)TheBigEastSucks Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 10:16 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 10:07 AM)Billy Bob Bearcat Wrote:  Cincinnati has some of the best regional recruiting in the country for Football. The University knows that it would be foolish to jeopardize what could potentially be a top 25 program every year for what, a Big East that actually pays less money? UC isn't killing off football like UConn, so it is an easy hard pass.

Also don't pretend like independence is going to bring in millions on a tv contract. Who is paying for that outside of ND and BYU?

BYU gets what, abouy 6m a year from ESPN for football?

I think indy Cincy is worth 4m. At that rate, the money w/Big East is better than the Aresco.deal.

BYU gets 4 million half of the aac deal with their own network. The big east died, just let it go.

BYU’s deal bottoms out around 4 but can be much higher depending on how many neutral site games there are, how many home games hit abc, how many hit ESPN/2, or espnu.

And it’s about to renegotiate so expect that floor to rise a bit.

They are working on new contract so agree, but will be below the AAC deal. They basically have no chance at the ny6 bowl which would be the biggest bump and ncaa tourney credits. My point was UC won’t get what a whole religious group with their own network will net, so them joining big east is just ludicrous.

1- They can match the AAC deal at worst. The AAC deal is an average that will average 7mm over the life of the deal. Basically it will be mid decade before it hits 7mm as all these deals start off lower and escalate over time. BYU should be able to match that and could potentially already with the right tv windows now. They closest thing to real numbers I’ve seen on them is 800k to 1.2 per game that ESPN carries. 4.8M is a fair ongoing ballpark for them. Assuming they carry 5 at 1.2 that gets them to 6m which is likely higher than the AAC’s current per team pay as these deals start well below the average listed figure. That’s a best case with those numbers but I would expect those to be average contract figures and not static so it may be higher now.

This doesn’t include any money BYUtv pays for their games or any revenue from a neutral site game contract (they usually have at least one) or bowl money or any non-tv revenue that their game contracts would stipulate.

I don’t see the AAC affording them.

2- Agree that UC would have a really tough time as a football independent as most schools would. I doubt they’d get the price per game BYU gets.

(06-26-2019 10:46 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  

(06-26-2019 09:39 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  UConn is not going to make a profit from this move:

- They likely will have to pay the AAC exit fee and legal fees
- There is going to be costs associated with rebranding
- A flight to Xavier is really not much cheaper than a flight to Houston
- No matter how we twist things, the Big East makes less money
- Their football team was losing money with a decent schedule.

This move simply does not make sense unless they secretly plan on ending their football team in the future. If they did that then this would be a fantastic move for UConn.

1.) Fox is rumored to be paying a significant portion of the exit/entry fees (in order to get their content for next year).
2.) Not sure what you mean by rebranding. UConn's brand is very much already Big East-focused. Do you mean field/court logos? This would hardly be a significant cost (and one that I would feel that the Big East would also help out with).
3.) UConn is now adding five bus trip opportunities to its Olympic sports. It was spending over $7 million in travel while in the American. This will significantly go down for all other sports.
4.) The rumored new deal for the Big East will be at least $6 million per year (with the addition of UConn). This does not take into account the better (and longer) tournament credits that the league has over the AAC, the more fan interest the conference has over the AAC (for UConn) and the significant bump in regional games that fans now get to travel to. When it's all added up, UConn will be making the the same (if not more) when you add in all of the new revenue sources and subtracted costs. This is all not counting football - which was forced to play a national schedule while located in a Southern-based conference.
5.) Their football program was losing money with a decent schedule. This was because the payouts the American was providing couldn't meet the costs that were going out. Couple that with the reality that the AAC/ESPN was now forcing its members to watch a substantial amount of games behind a paywall, and was being forced to relinquish its T3 rights, the time was now to make a move.

UConn always had an open door invitation to return to the Big East. Informal discussions were always there dating back to 2013-14 (which is why so many journalists/analysts always floated this as a possibility). The new TV deal was the final nail into the coffin for UConn's membership in the AAC (which was never sustainable to begin with long-term). Their time in the AAC was, one way or another, going to be a stop-gap until another path could be found.

You're placing a lot of faith in "rumors " about 6 million dollars pay increase. That would mean that UCONN alone is worth 6mi Pluto 2 extra million per school for a grand total of 26 million dollars a year just for adding UCONN basketball??? I don't think that is realistic at all. Heck the NBE has yet to get ratings that justify 4 million per year. Now maybe Fox thinks that UCONN is that valuable but the fact is that ESPN deems their value as inconsequential at best.

(06-26-2019 10:34 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 09:40 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 08:50 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 08:44 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  

(06-25-2019 08:36 PM)johnintx Wrote:  No. Their football program has a pulse.

If a P5 conference looks to expand from the ranks of the G5, Cincinnati has a chance to move. They're not a slam dunk, but they have a chance. As long as they have a chance to move to a P5 conference, they need to stay where they are.

Yes, and we're on the upswing. There is a legit shot at winning the conference chip and getting the Cotton Bowl invite this year. That would do wonders for our profile not seen since the Brian Kelly era. Cincinnati has invested too much in facilities and the football program in general to not stay alive for a shot at a better conference. If that doesn't come after 2025 then check back on this...

When I said No, I meant to say they shouldn't move to the Big East. Cincinnati needs to stay in the AAC until a better opportunity comes about. UConn realized that their P5 dream was over, and moved to the BE. The P5 dream isn't over for Cincinnati.

I disagree. While as a Big East fan i am 95% happy that UConn is coming back, 5% of me is curcumspect, because for the first time, we now have a member for whom the Big East is not the destination conference.

IOWs, i do not think UConn has given up on P5 in the least, they just think the Big East is a better platform from which to achieve it than the AAC proved to be.

This.

I don't think the Big East wants a school who is a potential P5 candidate. They don't want to lose members in the future.

I agree, which is why they have a $30m buyout clause from UConn should UConn go P5. The same kind of clause could be used with Cincy.