Football independence has been great financially

they get their buy games and don't have to split the money with any other conference members. They've struggled to be competitive, but they're heavily involved in the transfer portal and covid worked to their benefit with recruiting (able to sign kids that they normally couldn't sniff).

Being able to say that you play Bama and Kentucky is appealing to recruits because they know that if they can put decent tape out there it will go miles towards being able to advance their options. It also gets their athletic department fully funded.

Now, with that said, I would imagine that at some point the idea of being in a conference and being competitive would be a good goal. Right now they still have some bowl tie ins (AZ bowl and NM bowl, I think) and they schedule some deadbeats to go along with their buy games, but the WAC might be able to do better if they can add some other "name" teams.