The Pac-12 is suing the Mountain West over what it calls an illegal and unenforceable “poaching penalty” that would cost the reconstruction conference more than $40 million to add Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State and San Diego State, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in federal court.
The antitrust complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and seeks a declaratory judgment from a judge.
“The action challenges an anticompetitive and illegal ‘poaching penalty’ that the MWC imposed on the Pac-12 to hinder member schools’ competition in college sports,” the lawsuit states.
The Mountain West charges exit fees of more than $17 million to schools that leave. Those fees can increase depending on how much notice the school gives and are not at issue in the lawsuit.
The Pac-12 is challenging poaching fees that were put in place in the Mountain West’s football scheduling agreement for this season with Oregon State and Washington State, only current Pac-12 members this season.
The fee starts at $10 million and increases by $500,000 for each additional school the Pac-12 adds from the Mountain West. With four schools already on board, the total comes to $43 million.
Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a statement that the Pac-12 accepted the fees and recognized that they are essential to its conference members.
“This provision was put in place to protect the Mountain West Conference from this exact scenario. It was clear to us and to everyone across the country that the remaining members of the Pac-12 were going to try to rebuild,” she said. “The fees in question were included to ensure the future viability of the Mountain West and to allow our member institutions to continue to provide critical resources and opportunities to our student-athletes. At no point in the contract process did the Pac-12 claim that the agreement it freely entered into violated any law.”
The Pac-12 also extended invitations Monday to Mountain West schools Utah State and UNLV.
Utah State was admitted, the lawsuit said, although neither the school nor the conference made an official announcement.
Adding Utah State and UNLV would cost the Pac-12 an additional $24.5 million and leave the Mountain West with just six members, two short of what is required for recognition by the NCAA and the College Football Playoff.
The Pac-12 argues in the lawsuit that the Mountain West’s “harsh” exit fees already offset the loss of departing members.
The Pac-12 maintains that the poaching penalty had nothing to do with the intent of the deal between Oregon State and Washington State and the Mountain West, which was to provide those schools with six football opponents this year for a $14 million payment to the league.
“This goes beyond the terms of the scheduling agreement, it does not affect the schedule in any way and it has no impact on the amount of football played, the games scheduled or anything related to the scheduling of games for 2024-25,” the lawsuit states.
“Instead, the poaching penalty only serves to increase the MWC’s profits by locking in its member schools and preventing them from leaving for a competitor (Pac-12).”
The planning agreement has not been renewed for next year.
Oregon State and Washington State are in the first year of a two-year NCAA grace period in which they operate the Pac-12 as a two-team conference.
By 2026, the Pac-12 must have at least eight members to be recognized as a conference by the NCAA and CFP.
The first phase of the Pac-12 expansion began two weeks ago with the announcement of the addition of Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Colorado State, four of the Mountain West’s most traditionally successful football programs.
The Pac-12 then targeted a group of American Athletic Conference schools, but was rebuffed by Memphis, UTSA, Tulane and South Florida.
As the Pac-12 returned to the Mountain West schools, the latter attempted to lock in its remaining eight members through a rights-based agreement that ties the schools together through the conference via television rights.
Some Mountain West schools signed a memorandum of understanding and sent it back to the conference on Monday, but when Utah State didn’t, it allowed the others to reconsider.
Now that the Pac-12 is pursuing the Mountain West, it’s unclear whether either conference can move forward.
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