Pac-12 Expansion: Court and money issues

College football realignment is still continuing and for the moment the Pac-12 Conference is at the center of the current realignment.

The Pac-12 and the Mountain West are headed to court to fight over money. Yes, money. The real reason the whole conference realignment has happened the past couple of years. Who has the best media deal? Which conference gives a school a better shot at getting to the College Football Playoff? Which school has the best collective NIL for the players? Which conference gives their coach the best chance to get high paying job?

College athletics has been about the all might dollar for awhile now, but with the increased media deals, NIL deals for athletes, and coaches salaries the importance of getting “the bag” is on the front burner with college sports.

The Pac-12 is headed to court to try and avoid giving the Mountain West Conference money for poaching fees. We all know that the Pac-12 has convinced Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and most recently Utah State to join the conference in 2026 for athletic competition.

Pac-12 fans, media, and other college football insiders were anticipating that the conference was going to clear the eight team barrier with the additions of Memphis, Tulane, and the University of South Florida. However, that did not happen as all three schools declined the invites to join the Pac-12. Whether that changes in the future we just do not know.

This puts the Pac-12 at seven teams. By NCAA mandate the Pac-12 has until July 2026 to get to eight teams to be considered a conference.

The Mountain West has lost four of its top teams to the Pac-12. Mountain West officials are not to happy with the Pac-12 for poaching teams, but in essence the Pac-12 is fighting for survival. There are some who think that the Pac-12 is a conference of hypocrites because they are doing what the SEC, Big Ten, and even the Big 12 did to other conferences. That’s not what is going on here at all.

The Pac-12 is in survival mode. A once proud conference was decimated a little of year ago because the conference lacked a big media deal. You can call it mismanagement, bad leadership, or even laziness in their failure to secure a big time media. It was enough of a issue for 10 of the 12 schools to bail on a conference that was founded in a hotel room in downtown Portland, Oregon.

The current Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has said since Day One of her administration that she was there to fight for Oregon State and Washington State athletes, coaches, and especially fans.

In a span of about a year Gould has now entered into two different court cases.

If you remember the first court case was over control of the Pac-12 Conferences control of it’s assets when the other 10 teams bolted for the money of other conferences. The Pac-12 won that case. They have hired the same law firm to handle this current case. This current case, which has yet to go to court, is over the poaching penalties that the Mountain West Conference imposed for taking four of the top teams from the Mountain West.

This current lawsuit brought by the Pac-12 states that the poaching penalties are unlawful and unenforceable. The Pac-12 wants a declaratory judgement by the U.S. District Judge in Northern California.

The Mountain West has exit fees that approach $17 million per team. These fees can increase considerably depending how much notice the exiting teams give the Mountain West. Those fees are not in dispute with this lawsuit.

The exit fee for each school starts at $10 million and goes up in increments of $500,000 for every additional team that the Pac-12 takes.

Mountain West Commissioner, Gloria Nevarez, put out a statement that tried to clarify her conferences position on the lawsuit.

“The provision was put in place to protect the Mountain West Conference from this exact scenario. It was obvious to us and everyone across the country that the remaining members of the Pac-12 were going to try to rebuild,” she said. “The fees at issue were included to ensure the future viability of the Mountain West and allow our member institutions to continue providing critical resources and opportunities for our student-athletes. At no point in the contracting process did the Pac-12 contend that the agreement that it freely entered into violated any laws.” (AP News)

On Monday, the Pac-12 invited Utah State to join the conference. Utah State accepted the invite and became the seventh team for the Pac-12. This move puts the Pac-12 one team away from getting to the NCAA mandated eight teams by 2026.

Utah State is looking forward to competing in the Pac-12.

“This move unlocks new possibilities by directly enhancing the student-athlete experience and will significantly strengthen our reputation for competitive success, academic achievement, and research excellence,” Utah State President Elizabeth Cantwell said.

With no Memphis, USF, or Tulane joining it’s become a question of where the Pac-12 will go to get the eighth team.

Many people have thought that the University of Nevada-Las Vegas would be the popular choice for the Pac-12. The television market in Las Vegas is good to help increase the money for a media deal, the school is geographically in the Western United States, and in a city that the Pac-12 has used in the past for conference events.

However, UNLV, chose to stay in the Mountain West after they were received their bag of money from their conference. If UNLV left for the Pac-12 it almost would’ve guaranteed the demise of the Mountain West.

Once again, where does the Pac-12 look to?

There have been thoughts of getting on the phone to Stanford and University of California-Berkley. Stanford and Cal landed in the ACC after the dust settled last year in conference realignment. The Cardinal and Bears are not coming back anytime soon. They signed the Grant of Rights with the ACC and that would be extremely tough to maneuver out of. The litigation would cost millions of dollars. Both schools have money, but is it worth it to try to get back to their original conference?

I don’t think so. Just ask Clemson and Florida State who are trying to get out of the Grant of Rights deal with the ACC.

This possibility of unrest in the ACC is what people are pointing to as to why Stanford and Cal would come back to the Pac-12. While that does open a small window for the Cardinal and Bears to come back I don’t think that happens. Both teams have already appeared on ESPN more than they have in past years, so the ACC move has paid off.

Whatever happens for the Pac-12 and Mountain West in this lawsuit we have to remember that this situation is very fluid. What gets reported one day may be completely wrong the next day. Rumors can’t necessarily be taken as fact either. People have to let this version of college football realignment play out. We actually have to wait to see what happens and not get caught up in wild speculation about who’s coming to the Pac-12 and who is not.

What the Pac-12 is doing is about survival. It’s not any more complicated than that. The 10 other teams that left to go to the Big Ten or the Big 12 left out of a sense of survival as well.

Why can’t Oregon State, Washington State, and the Pac-12 do the same thing? Or is that just allowed with teams we deem acceptable?

Just asking.

Michael J. Wilson-The Daily Waiver