They should wait until they find out if they're the next Gonzaga/Butler or just a flash in the pan.  They need sustained success in b-ball before they decide to shirk football.

Much higher, but that's not saying much. Anyway, it's nice to see that not every team on earth wants to move to FBS. I'm starting to move towards the group that says what we are doing now is not sustainable. A new division of similar budget programs is desirable to the current arms race that we certainly cannot win or stay up with.

Adding to that though, I would have to believe that the ROI on basketball is much higher, which makes FGCU's decision on this very easy I would think. Throw a couple million at hoops and sustain success, or spend many more millions to build a football program to D-1.

Makes one wonder how long before this could happen at MAC, CUSA, and Sun Belt schools.

There are certainly some schools that are prime for this to happen.  EMU, of course, is probably first on the list.  They've consistently had fewer than 10,000 average attendance for home games: 3,923 in 2012; 4,268 in 2011; 5,016 in 2009; 7,448 in 2007; 5,219 in 2005.  And these are the figures they'll own up to; the actual attendance is likely much less.  If there's another economic downturn, they might kiss football goodbye. 

What will likely hurt the "Group of 5" football conferences the most is if the "elite" conferences decide to stop playing them.  The Big Tenfiinity is already dropping 1AA schools, and a few are calling for the snob conferences to play amongst themselves instead of scheduling Go5 conferences.  (I don't think it would happen because of antitrust concerns, but you never know.)  The exposure helps the Go5 schools, and if they pull an upset it can do wonders for attendance.   I know our win over Penn St last year really helped jack up attendance for the NMSU game the next week.  And, remember, the TV money is largely for football, not b-ball, so dropping football would shrink the pie. 

There are a lot of people who are of  your opinion who think there should be or will be a third subdivision for football within Division 1 but that would require a third championship structure. Based on the fact that FBS is a four team playoff now and could grow to 8 or 16 teams down the road I don't think the MAC, SBC, CUSA and MWC are going to push for a third subdivision. Structurally within D1 there are four levels presently; contract bowl leagues, group of 5 five, full scholarship FCS and less than 63 scholarship FCS. Conferences with less than 32 scholarships are ineligible for the FCS playoffs. The Pioneer League which Dayton competes in is ineligible for the FCS playoffs. Before the BCS developed the concept of the big conferences of the FBS playing at a different level of smaller leagues like the MAC wasn't de jure as it is today. Both the FBS and FCS don't give automatic bids to every conference so how can it be ensured that a third division with the MAC, SBC, CUSA and Big Sky, CAA, MVC would be democratic? It could be an 8 team playoff with best records invited only. The third level idea draws parallels between those leagues in fan support therefore they should be in the same subdivision but it doesn't consider leagues always act in their own self interests to structure to promote the bigger football schools. There is nothing democratic about the way FCS is set up with the CAA and Big Sky earning 3-4 playoff bids while the Northeast conference earns only 1.