Conference USA has good schools, teams, coaches and administrators, but there are different and, to be frank, dire reasons why the league ought to be studied by other college conferences.

Anybody hoping to attach future financial gain — or growth — to a television package or a cable network should heed the warning sent out by C-USA’s cruel reality.

Let’s put all of this in perspective. West Virginia is going to get a check for $30.4 million sometime soon — about four times the most money it ever received from the Big East — and press $40 million annually soon because it’s a member in the Big 12. TV alone will give the Mountaineers somewhere around $20 million.

C-USA, which houses Marshall, is about to get $2.8 million total from television, which is around $200,000 per school. Yikes!

It’s the consequence of having to negotiate TV deals at a bad time — first among the second-cut of conferences, and not long after the major conferences signed deals and drained networks — and all in all the financials are pretty gloomy for the league.

What’s happened to C-USA, which has lost good schools and added young and fledgling ones, also continues to illustrate the dangerous gap between the Power 5 and the Group of 5. Consider that the ACC’s average TV payout, which is last among the Power 5, will alone be more than all the money C-USA will have to split among its members.

In all, documents indicate that C-USA schools will split about $20.5 million in revenue from the league, including NCAA basketball tournament money. That’s down from the projected $34.4 million to be distributed this year.

Although the money is distributed based on formulas, and not all schools receive the same amount, that works out to about $1.5 million per school. That’s down almost $1 million from the current year.

Football revenue appears relatively stable. Thanks to $16.1 million in projected revenue from the College Football Playoff, C-USA will make $2.9 million available to help schools pay the full cost-of-attendance stipends and distribute $14,257,000 – a little more than $1 million per school – in bowl and CFP revenues.

Conference USA now appears fourth in the so called Group of 5 mid-major leagues when it comes to TV money. The American Athletic ($2 million per school), the Mountain West ($1.7 million) and Mid-American ($800,000) are all estimated to be well ahead of C-USA, which had the misfortune of being the first league to renegotiate its TV contracts during the current decline in cable sports revenue.

The Sun Belt is last at about $100,000.