For the USA fans ...
University CEO's love consensus. They work in an environment where they have to try to keep the board, the government, faculty, students, alums and the community happy.
The ACC has a bylaw that requires any motion to add a member in an existing state to be made by a member from that state, but as a general proposition leagues don't put that in writing. When Texas State and UTSA approached the Sun Belt the bylaws said anyone could make the motion. The talk was the votes were there and UNT indicated they would make a motion to add UTSA. When they got to new business on the agenda, UNT said nothing so it never received consideration because no one was going to buck UNT on Texas schools.
The league did not take that approach when Georgia Southern was being considered.
When the Sun Belt and American South merged UALR's entry to Sun Belt was set to be effective the day after the merger. The president of Lamar asked AState's president if we wanted a vote to revoke UALR's invite (we had just had a nasty dispute that cost AState several thousand dollars when UALR was forced by their board to break a multi-year contract when we had a press conference to invite UArk to play in our tournament). We obviously declined but that's how leagues work internally.
UTEP didn't want NMSU in the WAC but when the league was reeling from another raid they assented once UNT said no thanks. They made another run at UNT, then ULL, and AState and MTSU and only then did Boise agree to take Idaho because there wasn't enough support for the terms that UNT, UL, AState, MTSU put forward, take all of us.
If and lacking direct knowledge I stick with if, USM objects to USA, the rest of the members would weigh that heavily. Now if Fox is saying the only way CUSA gets the same or more money is to get back in Alabama, then USM's concerns won't carry much weight. If Fox is agnostic or has a list of multiple acceptable schools USA wouldn't be sunk. If say the list is UL, TXST, USA, NMSU, and AState, you could have groups of schools wanting to block NMSU (UTEP and schools not wanting the travel), TXST (UTSA, Rice, UNT), UL (LaTech and say Rice and USM), and AState (anyone objecting to the travel or current state of basketball), leaving USA as acceptable to more schools than any other candidate.
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