The big 12 had delusions of grandeur and thought they could snipe Florida state and Clemson from the ACC. They also thought they had BYU and Louisville in thier back pocket whenever they wanted. So they stopped expansion at 10 in hopes of raiding the ACC, after all there was no rush, BYU and Louisville will be around whenever they wanted them. Then the ACC locked up its members and stole Louisville while they were at it. Now there is only BYU, and no viable 12th, and when push came to shove they ultimately got thier conference championship game without even increasing the number of mouths to feed. This seems far more likely to me than BYUs jerk lawyer, or thoughts of byuTV being worth millions.