I love UConn, but we sure can be an arrogant bunch around here. It isn't all about UConn. Very little of what ESPN does or does not do involves a first or second thought about how it affects UConn. We simply aren't that important. Even Notre Dame isn't that important, or Michigan. Nobody is.
My feeling is that we have been generally unlucky, and some of that bad luck is self inflicted. Couple that with a feeling of entitlement (because ESPN is in our backyard and because it's early existence and success very much relied upon UConn) and we feel we should get some special positive treatment, not just cold neutrality. Long ago we might have, but ESPN is a Disney property, and I've negotiated contracts with Disney. Those are the toughest, meanest, coldest SOBs in the world (and they lawyer working against me was a friend who used to sit across the hall).
We need to own our decisions, good and bad. We joined the Big East: very good. Hired JC: very good. We didn't have the foresight to see how D1A football would drive college sports: very, very bad. After we made the plunge we hired a decent coach: good. When he left we hired a complete incompetent: very bad. We pushed to upgrade academics: good. We were late to push ourselves as a research institution: bad. Since we're in a small, rich state we were late to emphasize alumni relations or the endowment: bad. I'm willing to give Ollie and Diaco "good" ratings at this point, and Benedict looks like it as well. Going D1 in hockey and Joining Hockey East was good. It was an example of the foresight we should have had towards football at least a decade earlier.
That said, I do think that ESPN now holds our content at a bargain basement price. In its cold, rational business view of the world, that's something they want to continue. Hence our leak to Blauds, as a splash of cold water to let them know...that we know, and are paying attention.