Admitting Boise State to the Big West Conference didn’t make much sense.

Still doesn’t, actually.

But when it came down to beaucoup dollars and cents, well, that was a completely different story for the shoestring-budgeted membership.

So, seven months after the rank and file were so strongly against Bronco entrance that they didn’t even deign to take a formal vote, they unanimously welcomed Boise State to the club with open arms and outstretched palms Friday.

You suspect the University of Hawaii’s vote fell in line when Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple saw the futility in being a lone holdout and spoilsport when it would have taken three "nos" to kill the bid.

What swung the deal for the predominately California-based conference was not the opportunity to glimpse the Broncos’ fabled blue Smurf turf, or sample the wonders of Basque cuisine, or even the prospect of tossing snowballs at softball games, but the financial incentives offered.

As a condition of membership, Boise State will pay the conference $2.5 million spread over five years. In addition, it will bankroll travel expenses for all conference teams that trek to the "City of Trees" — an estimated $750,000-$770,000 per year, initially.

And, yes, it will pay the freight for Hawaii, too, but the Rainbows/Rainbow Wahine/Warriors will not have to subsidize the travel of Boise State teams to our shores.

For that you have to appreciate commissioner Dennis Farrell’s philosophy that anybody who comes into the conference after Hawaii knows what the geography is and ought to cover their own travel costs. We can only hope that the Mountain West comes around to this way of thinking.

While travel costs went on the table as soon as Boise State’s application did, the so-called "membership enhancement" cash figure was a negotiated process. Back in May, we were told, the Broncos were offering a reported $1 million. When that elicited yawns, the Broncos had to get their Big East brethren to pass the hat. The Big East so badly wanted — and needed — Boise State football, that reports are it will ante up on half of the travel and enhancement funds.

That the Broncos and San Diego State will join together in 2013 for an 11-team league is what UH President M.R.C. Greenwood might refer to as "almost coincidental."

Actually, the Aztecs, who will accompany Boise State to the Big East in football — and how crazy is this realignment when you have teams from the same school playing in different leagues on the East and West coasts — provided the muscle.

Bronco bucks might not have done it alone had the Aztecs essentially made it a package deal. The Big West so badly wants the prestige of San Diego State’s Top 25 men’s basketball program that it softened on Boise State and has given the Aztecs basketball scheduling concessions.

A few months ago the Big West envisioned a nice, tight all-Hawaii/California conference. One that Boise State president Bob Kustra had derisively termed, "a bus conference."

Now we know what — and who — drives the bus.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.