as opposed to the 60-some other CFA schools.
ABC had an NCAA TV monopoly from 1966-1981. ABC and CBS shared the NCAA contract from 1982-1983 (TBS had a "supplemental" contract of night games, initially limited to teams that hadn't been on national TV the preceding year).
The Supreme Court voided the NCAA TV deals in 1984 on antitrust grounds. From 1984-1986, ABC had the CFA contract, while CBS had contracts with the Big Ten, Pac-10, ACC, Army, Navy, and Miami (an independent at the time, but for some reason not a CFA member). From 1987-1990, the CFA contract flipped to CBS (which retained the ACC, Army-Navy, and Miami deals), and the Big Ten and Pac-10 to ABC.
For 1991-1995, ABC signed contracts with the CFA (which I think now included Miami, as a Big East member) and the Big Ten and Pac-10. This threatened to -- and did -- diminish the number of college football games on national network TV. CBS had mostly aired national games when it had the CFA contract, although it had occasional regional telecasts. By comparison, when ABC had the Big Ten and Pac-10 together, it usually showed those games regionally, with a few exceptions (usually in September and late November). But with all major college football schools tied to ABC, there were many weeks without a single national network telecast. That certainly did not make me happy, and it apparently was one of the features that prompted ND to bolt away from the CFA and cut its own deal with NBC.
ND basically became an outcast in the college football world at that point. Kansas even cancelled a basketball series in protest, while many coaches (most notably Paterno) and commentators ripped ND. I believe this was a major reason why ND lost the poll votes for the 1993 national championship to a Florida State team ND had decisively beaten in November.
But this anti-ND stance hardly was a principled one. When the ABC deal expired in 1995, the SEC and Big East bolted to CBS, which prompted the CFA to dissolve in 1997. From that point on, every conference negotiated for itself. I believe the supremacy of conferences in college football has hurt ND, perhaps as much as our own institutional incompetence.