I agree completely with the market overrated claim. The only people that care about that are the folks at the Big Ten Network and Big East Network who want to sell advertising, but at the end of the day it comes down to ratings points, not how potentially big the market is.
The problem still remains if Rutgers leaves, that puts the Big East at 7 football schools and a likely loss of their BCS status. It doesn't matter how good Rutgers is (this is why Hayward is such an idiot). Once they go below 8, what chain reaction happens? Maybe it's filled quickly by adding Army or someone.
What is scary as hell is if 3 leave. If that happens, the remaining Big East football programs have no choice but to try and save themselves...Louisville and WVU to the SEC for example. Unless the Big East is able to proactively poach on their own programs that would prevent those others from leaving.
Those are the dominoes that everyone should be worried about.
