The only folks, if any, who made conference decisions based to some degree on television were the Big East basketball folks. And those folks were way ahead of the curve, although short sighted in other ways.

You have to understand that the core of eastern independents were a de facto conference in football. WVU, Pitt, Penn State, Syracuse, Rutgers and Temple played each other virtually every single year. Rutgers and Temple were important to Penn State not because it was a big rivalry, but it allowed them to play in New Jersey and Philly where PSU recruited and had many alumni.

The schools you mention - Cincy, Louisville, USM, ECU, et al. were not very attractive to the eastern schools. None were terribly competitive. None had relationships with the eastern schools. It's why Tech was somewhat lucky to get in the Big East football conference when it formed. Tech had a relationship with WVU then, but not with Pitt or Syracuse or any of the others.

The "Super Metro" conference that was discussed at one time didn't fly because the eastern schools had no interest in playing what amounted then and now to second-tier programs in the south like Memphis and USM. Louisville football was playing in a minor league baseball stadium then. Cincinnati never hosted major programs.

So the core of any eastern-based conference would have included all of the eastern independents, to which would have been added the best brands available (FSU and Miami) had they been willing, Maryland (which had relationships with PSU and WVU) had it been willing to bolt the ACC, and others to be determined.