respective conferences. At the very least, it could suggest that adding new members may not be a conference's only option. If a conference continues to grow, then eventually it will go from being a conference to being more a confederation like the ECAC and its 220 members from all 3 division levels. If the schools believe adding new members is the only way to increase revenue, then that suggests all the conferences will eventually merge together into 1 conference. At least the conferences can't rely on the status quo to continue increasing the revenue because it will plateau at some point.

I do think it is possible that some schools may reach a different conclusion. An alternate conclusion could be that "less is more." A school may find it can have a larger slice of pie if the pie is cut up into fewer slices. At least it is possible schools may find they are receiving less money with more members even though the size of the pie increased due to the addition of new members.

Before: 10 members dividing up $300 million = $30 million per member

After: 12 members dividing up $350 million = $29.167 million per member