So now it is the Conference Formerly Known As The Pac-12. A few weeks back, UConn was courting the Big 12. No word whether Ocean’s Twelve and Adam 12 could be next. But if nothing else, the ongoing courtships illustrate UConn’s continuing desire to find a home for its football program, underscoring the blunder its hierarchy made five years ago choosing to placate the basketball crowd.

Oh, sure, Connecticut is awash in a basketball culture, flaunting the road signs and blubbering about the rapture, rhapsody and romance of the Big East. But in trying to do the popular thing - serving basketball and relegating football to independence - UConn officials imperiled the financial future of athletics by failing to read the rest of the room. Basketball may carry the passions, but for purposes of expansion, realignment and the revenues attached, football pays the bills.

A more cynical fellow might love to see somebody at State U admit the mistake. But, alas, the line of sycophants forms to the right, thus creating the Berlin Wall between truth and reality.

Meantime, any foray with the Pac-12 must be considered through the narrow lens of Jerry Maguire: Show us the money.

To wit: The Pac-12, which just added Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State to holdovers Oregon State and Washington State, doesn’t have Power Four cachet. It does not figure to command media revenue shares anywhere near the $40-70 million Power Four schools receive. But it could conceivably offer UConn significantly more than the minimum wages that leak into the current coffers.

Hence, this is the question: Would the expected revenue increase be enough to convince UConn to play all its conference road games two and three time zones away?

Published reports say the new Pac-12 schools could expect $10-15 million per year in media revenue. But what could UConn fetch as a part-time (football-only) member? This is the question that must be answered before any decisions are made.

I can’t see UConn going to the Pac-12 as a full-time member, given the travel issues and how the Fresno State at UConn men’s basketball game on some Tuesday night in January isn’t likely to inspire the Huskymaniacs to breathe into brown paper bags.

Just remember: UConn did this to itself.

And I’m not sure how many people in Connecticut realize it. Or would admit it if they did. Maybe the suggestion that basketball is irrelevant to the expansion and realignment process is counterintuitive. But basketball simply cannot match football revenues. Anywhere.

Example: Texas A&M drew 107,315 to its football opener Aug. 31 against Notre Dame. The capacity at Texas A&M’s home basketball arena is 12,989, meaning the basketball team needs a little more than eight home sellouts to match one football crowd. It’s that way throughout the Power Four to varying degrees. It’s just that we don’t process such things in this basketball-centric culture.

I’m not sure how much of this gets derailed by the court of public opinion, whose cynicism is understandable, yet irrelevant. Guffaw all you want at Stanford in the ACC or Southern Cal in the Big 10. Bang your shoe against the table like Khruschev at the absurdity and unfairness of it all. The rhetorical usefulness would be nifty for a talk show. It’s also useless to the process.

If UConn could get close to $10 million in media revenue from the Pac-12 and use the stability of a conference for a bowl tie-in, the athletic department deficit - which state officials dismiss like Mike Francesa used to do to callers - would become a bit more manageable. The problem wouldn’t be solved, but would be better than the current situation.

Boise State isn’t Alabama, but then it’s not Florida Atlantic, either. And Boise would come with 10 million better reasons.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.