All that said, i think WVU wants uconn so they can have that eastern pod of 4.
That they will still fly all sports to each of the teams in the pod anyway. (UConn is over 8.5 hours from Morgantown by road)
Tell me how a flight to Phoenix is significantly more than a flight to Lubbock. I would really like to know what teams in the Big 12 today that WVU does not fly to for most, if not all sports as it is today, Olympic sports or not.
So tell me how adding any teams is a drastic change in costs.
WVU is not driving to anyone in the current Big 12, and might possibly drive a few sports to Cinci in the new Big 12. But saying flying to Boulder is somehow drastically more expensive or even drastically longer time, than Manhattan or Ames is ridiculous. Even if we added Washington or Oregon, the cost or time in the air is not that major of a change from anywhere else in the Big 12.
I would get this if you could prove that WVU is bussing their Olympic sports anywhere as it is in the Big 12, that somehow adding more teams that require flights matters, now or with the future teams. Tell me they are running a bus 14 hours to Orlando, or Ames or the 23 hours to Lubbock. Then we can talk about the drastic change it would be to add Boulder or Tucson. You are just swapping a flight for one Big 12 school to other Big 12 schools.
12 games with required flights is still 12 games with required flights. The destination really doesnt matter that much overall.
The difference in flights from Morgantown to Dallas (2.5hrs) vs Tucson (4hrs) is a whole 1.5 hours, and the difference in cost is negligible. Hell a flight all the way to Seattle from Morgantown is only 4hrs 50 mins. (to Ames its 2hrs for reference.)