I think secretly (not secretly?) ESPN wants to keep the media rights to all of the Mag7 + plus other ACC schools, but make them “premium” by adding them to the SEC portfolio offering. ESPN couldn’t do that directly without getting sued out their rear ends for eternity by the ACC, et al. Also, the SEC doesn’t want all of the ACC schools anyway. The center of the Ven diagram is the Mag7, schools ESPN wants to maximize profit on as premium airtime products and schools the SEC is willing to take. In order to get those schools at once, ESPN probably needs a stop-gap. This is where the idea of those schools forming their own conference probably originated. After a year or two of operation they could easily throw their hands up in defeat and saying they gave it a shot, it didn’t work, we’re merging into the SEC. If that doesn’t happen (which seems unlikely), then ESPN can expect some of those Mag7 schools to be lost to the B1G/Fox.