This part isn't true; BYU also has had a national contract with ESPN since leaving its previous conference. It's not nearly as lucrative as Notre Dame, but includes all but one home game per year (so far always a I-AA opponent). The difference is that they're interested in joining a conference because their contract and overall prominence is less than ND.
Temple was kicked out of the Big East following the 2004 season for being non-competitive. That's the only "relegation" I can think of in NCAA football.
BYU now plays most sports in the West Coast Conference, which doesn't exist in football. The only western conferences in the Bowl Subdivision, the Pacific-12 and Mountain West, each have two division of 6 teams, so adding BYU but not anybody else would make a division of 6 and a division of 7.
Thought that situation (and the demise of the WAC) was at least partially caused by BYU pulling out of its conference and going independent.
This was part of 2010 conference realignment. While the PAC-10 was trying to grab half the Big XII, the Mountain West invited Boise State to better position themselves. This would have barely boosted them above the Big East by the rules the BCS used at the time to determine automatic bids, as well as the leftovers of the Big XII if the PAC-16 plan succeeded, with Boise, TCU, Utah, and BYU. But it didn't happen, and Utah was invited to the PAC-12. Effectively replacing Utah with Boise was lateral on the football field and a step back everywhere else and left the MWC in a similar state as before. BYU then decided to leave the Mountain West, and was planning to rejoin the WAC in other sports. The other half of the decision was media rights, something which had been a thorn for BYU for several years. In negotiations with the other founding members of the conference in 1997, the school was assured it would have secondary broadcast rights to anything which did not appear on a broadcast partner's channels, and primary international rights to everything but football and men's basketball. This was important to the school, which was investing heavily in broadcasting facilities on campus for BYUTV. The final paperwork creating the conference did not include any provision, and neither would the contract the conference signed with CBS Sports in 2005. BYU wanted conference members to stand with them in negotiating to get those rights back, but none of the others placed any value on such rights, so several conference members stuck to their contractual obligations and no more. When people talked about BYU being hard to work with, this was the original issue, not the Sunday play rule. For BYU, the largest media draw for the conference, this was growing intolerable even before 2010, when the musical chairs everywhere made it the logical time to leave the MWC. The WAC was more than happy to have BYU back in everything but football. The MWC response was to invite Fresno and Nevada, making the WAC no longer viable. Whether this was out of spite or fear that other schools might one day jump back to the WAC is unclear, but there was a rumor UNLV had been open to the idea.
So what conclusions can we draw from conference realignment in NCAA football that relate to the future of MLS? This is what I can think of: 1. Media rights are a major driver. While rivalries and passionate fanbases are important, schools will throw away rivalries or attempt to manufacture new ones in a heartbeat if they can move to a higher profile conference that offers more money and better competition. I think in some cases the prestige and higher profile of a larger conference are important for recruiting tuition-paying students, too. And conferences will take on new members if and only if they believe it will improve the conference both financially and competitively. I think this is where MLS should be heading. They need a big tv deal to really break through and become a major sport. They are obviously committed to expanding. Whether or not they will eventually be able to turn that into a NHL or SEC type of tv deal remains to be seen. 2. People want to see the best teams play each other. This is why most of the major conferences have a championship game, and it's why the national championship playoff was eventually able to overcome all the vested interests that resisted it. Playoffs are probably not going anywhere in MLS 3. College sports is popular and profitable because of the roots that the schools have in their city, state, alumni network. In many cases, the biggest teams are more popular than the NFLbecause they have been around longer than the nearby NFL team, or there is no nearby NFL team. Several MLS teams have been successful in midsize markets that aren't competing with every other major sport in that market. Portland, Salt Lake, Kansas City(after the rebrand), Columbus. Toronto and the other Canadian teams don't have NFL. Seattle exploded right after they lost their NBA team. I think there is real potential to grow some very passionate fanbases in many smaller markets for MLS. The MLS academies can help to put down those roots in communities that college and high school sports have. Threatening to move a franchise like Columbus puts that at risk not only in Columbus, but it threatens to undermine the loyalty that MLS is hoping to grow for all of its teams. Anyway, I hope we can veer back towards MLS discussion. I learned some nice little tidbits about NCAA that I didn't know, but I think we ended up getting a little side-tracked.