Lose?
It's not about BC and VT baseball. It's about FSU and Charleston Southern or USF or Clemson and Troy or Syracuse in football vs being played on ESPN3, not to mention the conference games that will be showcased on. Fans will buy the channel, and the conference, in turn, will be able to sell sponsorship through their TV network. You want to be on the FSU and Clemson football games? Guess what, when you buy that, you're also buying Wake and BC in baseball.
Conferences don't have a lot of avenues to make cash like individual Universities - they don't have "seasons." They have a football championship game, and a basketball tournament. That's it. Being able to have a network at your disposable opens yourself up to plenty of other assets of which to sell. Have a good product and hire good sales people and you won't have a problem.