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Liberty even offered to open its checkbook. Sources told me that in 2016, Liberty offered Conference USA millions of dollars more than the usual $2 million admission fee for an invitation.
How many millions more? One source pegged the offer at $24 million. The offer coincidentally came at about the same time C-USA was learning its TV revenue would soon crater, going from paying $1.1 million per school annually to about $200,000.
But C-USA presidents, who had the final call, were unwilling to invite a private, evangelical school with conservative values and a sometimes controversial chancellor. That left the Flames to chart their own course.