It’s unclear to me why short notice travel is needed or how exclusivity enables it, unless it’s written into the contract.Primarily the ability to be able to travel on demand with short notice (this is highly important to major programs...allows travel flexibility). I mean sure, you can probably get some pricing discount if you were traveling on a very large scale. However, cheapest pricing is not the primary reason for these agreements (from the buying side).
With such competition available and an everchanging environment for travel, I am sure that these exclusivity agreements will slowly go away.
Regarding scale, no football program has enough volume to move the needle. They’re roundoff errors on a carrier’s business statement. As someone who used to contract for transportation services, I’m not seeing meaningful leverage in a few football games. Add basketball and all other Illini sports and you get enough volume to get a carrier’s attention. Hopefully we’re contracting for all sports combined.