Don't confuse more popular with more profitable.If ISU is out, I'm out. There are millions of alums who can wake up and suddenly their school is out, or every school in their state/region is out. That's some leverage.
There's absolutely no way Sankey and your commissioner's dream is going to be long term more popular than the previous setup where we had about 70 major conference teams and 130 FBS teams.
Everyone is hating on Sankey and Pettiti (and rightfully so), but remember it's ESPN/Fox/et al that are writing the checks and driving the action. Sankey and Pettiti are just collaborating minions.