Not sure about the "spirit" part, but except for Charlotte, we can get some idea on attendance (bear in mind that 2011 is most recent NCAA has published, but I looked up UTSA's 2012 numbers separately since they ascended to the WAC from FCS last season)...
- CUSA Defectors' Average Home Attendance: 29,454
- CUSA Left-Behinds' Average Home Attendance: 22,870
- CUSA Newbies' Average Home Attendance: 20,544
- MAC Average Home Attendance: 17,033
So... probably better attendance than MAC... but no way is future CUSA going to beat current CUSA.
Like many of your posts, you try and paint a picture that goes to your point while ignoring any depth to the argument. The average attendance of the teams leaving is basically driven by two factors - ECU, which has great attendance, second best of any non-Big 5 school, and the fact that Tulane lies, to the point of absurdity, about the number of fans they have come to games. Tulane, SMU, and Memphis have bad attendance, Houston has good attendance when they win (it immediately goes away when they lose), UCF has good attendance (but not considering the size of the student body or market they are in).
Here's something else you ignore in the "newbie's average". ODU averages 20,057, which is 101% of capacity. They sold 14,500 season tickets last year and had a waiting list of over 8,000. When their stadium expansion is complete they will average over 30,000.
By the way, 2012 numbers are available:
http://web1.ncaa.org/mfb/2012/Internet/attendance/fbs_attendance.htmlHere are some notes for comparison:
As I said, I'll give you ECU, they have great attendance and are an outlier. They averaged 47,013 last year. UCF was at 34,608. After that you have a drop off in those leaving - Houston fell from 31k in 2011 to 27K in 2012, followed by Memphis (24k), SMU (21K), Tulsa (20k) and Tulane (18k - yeah, right, more like 3K). So if you either take out ECU, or adjust Tulane to their real attendance, the average is more like 24k.
We picked up USTA (29k) and La Tech (26k), which compare very favorably. As mentioned, we also get ODU, which will be the conference leader in attendance when their stadium upgrades are done. UNT, MTSU, and WKU are all similar to Tulsa and the reported attendance of Tulane (except their fans are actually there). Plus we still have USM and Marshall that average 25,000 and UTEP that was over 29k last year. The weakness is with FIU/FAU and the continued presence of UAB.
As far as the MAC goes, they have 4 schools below the worst school in new CUSA. EMU averaged a whopping 3,900 last year and the league average was under 15k.