When two-thirds of your conference is openly flirting with a competitor with more resources, what do you do? If you're the AAC, the answer is apparently "nothing."
Histroy has a funny way of repeating itself.
The Catholic 7 basketball schools departed from what is now called the American Athletic Conference in 2014 after the then-Big East tried to expand again in the wake of the Big 10 and Big XII adding teams. The seven schools said adios, citing (correctly) that it was a clear money grab and that their best interests were not being considered.
The Big East then splintered into two conferences: the Big East, a basketball-only conference, and the American, an all-sports conference made up of the remaining teams.