For the time, Sunset, ESPN holds sole rights to ACC FB and MBB games. For me to call this a "hostage situation" is no more exaggerated than for you to say that ESPN "fought tooth and nail" for Texas. They, ESPN, proposed the Longhorn Network and wrote series of checks. That wasn't much of a fight, and the results were: Texas got sack of money that they didn't have to share with their conference mates; The Big 12 was hamstrung, as a conference, for media negotiations; and each of the other Big 12 schools was damaged financially.
This is a brutal form of business strategy and ESPN is obligated to make decisions like this sometimes in the interest of the corporation and their shareholders. Don't be surprised if we see a similar move involving Southern Cal. ESPN can't offer a fat media contract to the PAC 12, but they don't like the idea of that conference getting too cozy with Fox and The B1G. One defense might be to crash the media value of the conference by offering USC a huge contract to go Indy, like Notre Dame, and leave those other PAC losers behind. Let's hide and watch.