The media revenue, for most schools, is their biggest chunk of revenue. SMU must have commitments from donors to make up that money with increased donations. A lot of g5 schools who have been more successful than SMU like SDSU, Boise, Memphis, Troy, Marshall, Western Michigan, likely don't have alumni willing to commit the money to do so. The more important piece of this is these schools finding a conference that wants them. It's yet to be seen that the ACC actually wants SMU, the talk their has only come from University Park to the ACC and not the other way around.
G5 schools have had plenty of upward mobility both within the G5 and into the P5. A lot of these schools are at their max and now you can argue that some of these schools, like SMU, might already be in a conference beyond where they should be. SMU has only been AAC worthy because of their money and location, their results and support have not merited that level. Now that the AAC is watered down, they're fine there now but they should have previously been in CUSA with Rice.
