Could be a long term play. Pay them partial at first, and eventually the revenue will make sense later on. Plus, don't underestimate the effect of potentially knocking a conference completely out of the playoffs.Big Ten only adds members if it, at minimum, keeps the per school payout the same. I haven't heard that adding Oregon and Washington would do that. And who in their right mind thinks adding Cal and Stanford would.
Right now the Big Ten is projected to distribute $80M per year at the low end. I don't see adding those four as a minimum break even.