Swathmore, I wasn't trying to imply that having a Bill Snyder wouldn't make ISU more appealing, but at the end of the day I think it would only make ISU a lock for joining the MWC. I mean for an academic exercise, assume ISU still had Dan McCarney coaching and had won 2 division titles (2004 & 2005) and had winning seasons 8 of the last 10 years and a 5-5 or 6-4 record against Iowa. I think these all would have been reasonable successes ISU could have achieved. Would ISU be invited to the PAC 10 or Big Ten? I don't think they would. Even if they had pulled off an upset in the 2004 Big 12 Championship game, I don't think it would change the situation ISU is in.
I in no way was implying that ISU and KSU are comparable. As an ISU grad student I know the difference in academic standards between the two.
alarson, if ISU had Nebraska like numbers for 25 - 50 years then I could see your point, but not if it was just the last 10 years. Nebraska has a national following, for better or worse, as a result of their cross-generational success. Nebraska also brings some TVs (I think slightly less than 1 million) where as ISU brings no TVs. For the Big Ten Network, it is less about if you watch the product than it is about getting on the basic cable tier in a specific area. The Big Ten Network is already on basic cable in Iowa, so it is like the Lifetime Network to many ISU fans. Do you watch it? Probably not, but the Lifetime Network still gets money every month from Mediacom for it being on your cable package. If the Big Ten adds Nebraska, they would get $0.70 per subscriber per month. Even at only about 1 million new TV sets, that comes out to $8.4 million in new revenue just for having the network on basic cable in the state. Once you include advertising and the increase in the ESPN contract when that comes up in 2014, Nebraska justifies its addition.
The subscriber fees are why Missouri makes so much sense as well. It's reported that Missouri has around 2.5 million cable/dish subscribers. That's $21 million dollars just from subscription fees alone.