I don’t follow your response. What “issue” has been raised in the last ten years? Our entry into the SEC? To be fair, some circles have been discussing getting us back into the SEC about as soon as the discussions about leaving the SEC ended.
My point is that the issues you raised are not the issue keeping us out of the SEC now. Honestly, up until the last 10 years all the things you mention may have been relevant to some extent. Now, quite simply, we don’t deliver a market they need. It doesnt matter what conference we’re coming from or how big our stadium is... if we have a market they want. We could add 40,000 seats (and sell them), leave the “damaged” ACC and start winning10 games a year and the SEC still wouldn’t want to talk if we weren’t a threat to take the Atlanta market away.
Even when the rumor mill was swirling about us actually leaving the ACC, we were destined for other conferences. The only people who had us going to the SEC were wishful thinkers or people peddling speculation about an SEC desire of “blocking” the Big Ten out of Atlanta / Southeast.