This seems like a good time to remind people how the Sunbelt used to be the absolute worst conference in FBS. Worse than the MAC. And somehow it has morphed into one of the better conferences - I would put it on par with the MWC and better than the current version of the AAC. It's certainly not the best conference, but it's a fun conference that garners more viewers than it should based on the profile of its members.
How did they do this? By incorporating programs that care about football. That have fanbases, boosters, and AD who fucking love college football. They show up, they make signs, they bicker on the internet, they spend as much money as they can, and they basically treat football the way everyone treated it 30 years ago.
Here is a good article about the SBC's strategy: https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/34454887/amid-college-football-chaos-sun-belt-conference-rivalries-fun-throwback
The Sun Belt is keeping its divisions, leaning hard into regional rivalries, and reconnecting long-missed matchups that were lost to previous rounds of conference realignment and teams leaping into the FBS ranks no matter where and how they did it. That strategy, once the standard in college sports, is now downright counter cultural. The Sun Belt represents stability and familiarity in a world where complaints of "I don't even recognize my favorite sport" are becoming louder by the day. That's no accident. "No, no, we were really deliberate. At the end of the day, we want fans to be able to travel to the games, but also games they want to go to," says commissioner Keith Gil.
That is why the Big 12 will be better than a conference with BC, Pitt, et al. Because Big 12 fans give a shit. Yeah, the schools are poor and the fanbases are small, but they show up. They are rabid about their teams. ISU football sucks, but they were willing to kill their baseball team just to keep it. The Big 12 is the Sunbelt of the P4. Who did the ACC just add in this last round of realignment? Cal and Stanford - two of the fart-sniffingest programs around that are openly antagonistic to football. In contrast, the Big 12 added Utah to pair with BYU, ASU and Arizona, and an admittedly shitty CU who, nonetheless, has a coach that drive engagement. People will still watch CU games if only to watch Deion and his ilk lose.
The Big 12 will take the teams from the ACC that are worth a damn and have fans & ADs that care. The Sunbelt's strategy will work for them. They don't have to be the best or the biggest conference, they just have to be undeniably fun to watch. The ACC doesn't get it, and will either die or look like the CUSA in a few years.