Iowa would need about probably a 30 team league to make the super conference if it happened. The longer it goes the less chance they have. Iowa is sliding in population and other teams are establishing themselves when they jump to P5 and potential adds in larger or growing states. Teams like Kentucky improving their football (along with Duke and Kansas) are the worst possible thing for iowa. While football is first, MBB still has a little money to it for the top teams. Do you take a basketball powerhouse like Kentucky who has become competitive in football and wouldn’t probably be as ticked off as others if they weren’t winning in football?
One thing that will help them is B1G vs SEC balance. SEC has at least 9 quality brands that will for sure make a SuperLeague (Bama, GA, LSU, FL, OU, UT, Tenn, Auburn, A&M). B1G only has 5 for sure (OSU, UM, PSU, USC, UCLA), but has about 4 more that are close (Wisky, Nebby, Iowa, Mich St).
One thing that will hurt them is Nebby and Wisky are in front of them in line, and does a SuperLeague really want 3 teams in 3 small population states? Another thing that might hurt is if UO and UW are in the B1G when this happens, then the balance argument above is less of a thing.
I think 20 teams, Iowa does NOT make the cut. 24 teams, its 50/50. 30-32 teams, they are in for sure. They have a strong brand nationally (see link), regardless of all the other things.
Branding
This is 2 years old, but his criteria seem pretty decent to me.