I'm just not following you on what you mean by "cater."
Here's an excerpt from Malloy's rejection of the B1G's last membership offer:
The process of sharing information with the Big Ten and CIC has been of great value to Notre Dame. It encouraged us to consider a variety of issues integral to our pursuit of academic and athletic excellence, as well as to our distinct mission as a Catholic university. We have great respect for both the academic stature and the athletic integrity of the Big Ten universities.
Why, then, not take the ultimate step in partnership and become a member of the Big Ten? That answer, in the end result, transcends the many individual factors, academic and athletic, that weigh either for or against conference affiliation. Ultimately, the answer lies in the institutional identity of Notre Dame, its overarching definition. Just as the Universities of Michigan or Wisconsin or Illinois have core identities as the flagship institutions of their states, so Notre Dame has a core identity, and at that core are these characteristics—Catholic, private, independent.
Emphasis mine. Not too incredibly long ago, when this was written (Feb 1999), ND opted not to join the B1G because they felt that they didn't fit in with the conference, culturally or academically.
Catholic: The B1G's prior rejection of ND's membership requests from one of their legendary coaches (Rockne) partially on grounds that they were a Catholic university didn't help, nor did the flight or rejection of Catholic universities all over the nation from the AAU, around which the B1G membership is essentially based. They didn't feel it would be consistent with their Catholicism to align themselves with the B1G then, and what about any of that has changed? Just that the Catholic University of America dropped out of the AAU in 2002 citing similar disagreeances. If anything, the AAU has become even further removed from the graces of the Catholic academia in that span.
Private: The B1G has just one private school, Northwestern, which was founded on Methodist principles that were later omitted from the mission of the university. Northwestern is also the smallest member of the B1G by enrollment, and is several times the size of ND at both the undergrad and especially at the postgraduate levels. Northwestern is also primarily a nonsectarian research university along with many of the members of the B1G, all cooperating in the CIC. The CIC is the academic counterpart to the football conference and membership is de-facto required for sports participation. This committee clashes vividly with ND's mission, because the CIC directs such conference initiatives as
course sharing, cooperative purchasing, and diversity initiatives. ND is not open to changing its religious culture for participation in sports, and it is not open to changing its academic culture for participation in research. As it stringently attempts to maintain control and independence in its business decisions, it also isn't open to cooperative purchasing efforts.
So when I say the B1G would not 'cater' to ND, it means the B1G isn't willing to make an exception to the arrangement of the academic side of the conference to grab the ND football money, which is precisely true. The B1G views itself as an academic conference of premier research universities long before an athletic conference of any kind, and they've been running the shop quite successfully this way since the 50's. The B1G allowing ND to maintain the elements of its identity that it deems most important and still be a member of the B1G would essentially be catering to ND.
So yes, the B1G makes sense more than the ACC from a football perspective, but IMO it is a very bad fit for ND the university.
