How did the Pac-12 and Mountain West get here? Explaining a realignment tug-of-war

Conference realignment continues to rage out west, much to the confusion of many people in the rest of the country. Why didn’t the two Pac-12 schools and Mountain West just merge? Why are there almost $150 million in exit fees to just recreate the Mountain West? Why are the conferences bracing for a court battle after a lawsuit filed by the Pac-12 on Tuesday?

Let’s answer your questions and explain how we got here.

Why does the Pac-12 need more schools?

The Pac-12 dropped to two members this fall when USC and UCLA left for the Big Ten (a move the schools announced in 2022), Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah left for the Big 12 (announced in 2023) and Stanford and Cal left for the ACC (announced in 2023). Those two remaining members were Oregon State and Washington State.

NCAA bylaws provide a two-year grace period for conferences to get back up to a required eight members to be a full conference. College Football Playoff leaders determined late last year that conferences must have eight members for their champions to be eligible for an automatic qualifying CFP spot, and the NCAA Division I Board of Directors announced the Pac-12 no longer had “autonomous” status, a designation that grants some leagues certain rule-making powers.

With the addition of Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State this month, the Pac-12 is up to seven members for 2026.

Why didn’t Oregon State and Washington State just join another conference like the Mountain West?

Oregon State and Washington State said they planned to continue to invest and compete at a power conference level once the 10 outgoing Pac-12 members announced their intentions. Plan A involved getting an eventual invitation from the ACC or Big 12. They simply didn’t want to officially accept their new position as a Group of 5 school outside the power conferences. But Plan A didn’t materialize. The ACC didn’t expand beyond Cal, Stanford and SMU, and the league hasn’t fractured from its ongoing legal battles with Florida State and Clemson. The Big 12 was also not interested in more than the four Pac-12 schools it had already added. As a result, Oregon State and Washington State opted to rebuild the Pac-12 by adding other schools. But they didn’t want the bottom of the Mountain West and its least invested schools in athletics.

What is the scheduling agreement between the Pac-12 and Mountain West?

In late 2023, Oregon State and Washington State needed to figure out homes and schedules for their teams for 2024. While the “Pac-12” was still officially a conference, it didn’t have enough members to determine a champion or fill out a schedule.

The Mountain West stepped in with a lifeline, offering a 2024 football scheduling agreement that would remove one conference game from all 12 Mountain West schools and replace it with a game against Washington State or Oregon State. But this was also a business transaction: The deal sent $14 million from the Pac-12 to the Mountain West for the games, said the two leagues would work in good faith on a merger, set up the possibility of a basketball scheduling agreement, kept an option for an extension that would apply a similar system to 2025 football schedule and stated the terms of the deal would survive two years beyond whenever the agreement ended. Additionally, the agreement said there would be a penalty if either Oregon State or Washington State joined a conference outside the Power 4 or MW.

It also included a clause for poaching fees: If the Pac-12 added Mountain West schools, it would cost from $10 million for one school up to $137.5 million for 11 schools. To encourage a full merger, there was no cost for adding all 12 schools. Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez described the agreement as a way for the MW to protect itself.

The agreement was signed by Oregon State, Washington State, Nevarez and former Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff.

What happened to the other sports?

Most of Oregon State and Washington State’s other sports, like basketball, joined the West Coast Conference as part of a two-year agreement. Oregon State’s baseball program, a perennial College World Series contender, went independent. Washington State baseball and women’s swimming joined the Mountain West on a two-year deal.

Why didn’t the football scheduling agreement extend for 2025?

As the Sept. 1 deadline for an extension approached, it became clear the sides were far apart and the relationship had soured. The Athletic reported in July that the sides were at odds and the two Pac-12 schools were considering other options.

The deadline came and went, and The Athletic reported the sides were far apart on money. The Pac-12 in its lawsuit filing claimed the Mountain West asked for $30 million for the same number of games in 2025, up from $14 million for the 2024 games. Mountain West sources denied Pac-12 claims that the Mountain West had told its members to not individually schedule Oregon State and Washington State and instead stick together and keep the league’s leverage.

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What will Oregon State and Washington State do for its 2025 football schedule without an agreement?

Even before talks with the Mountain West broke down, Oregon State and Washington State had been working on filling out the rest of their schedules in the event the deal didn’t continue. Last week, Wake Forest canceled a 2025 game with Ole Miss and announced it would play a home-and-home with Oregon State in ’25 and ’29. Sources familiar with the Pac-12’s planning say to expect more announcements like that in the coming weeks.

Why did four Mountain West schools leave for the Pac-12?

The Pac-12 on Sept. 12 announced the additions of Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State from the Mountain West, set to join the league in 2026. The deal for those schools came together quickly after the scheduling agreement extension fell apart.

The four schools felt the brand and resources of the Pac-12 — and the similar investment level of its two members — could provide more benefits to them than being in a conference with the least-resourced schools of the Mountain West, like San Jose State, Nevada and Hawaii.

But the addition of four members didn’t get the Pac-12 to the required eight. Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes said before a home football game against Oregon that the league would add between two and four more schools, that geography wasn’t a limitation and that football was a requirement for the next group of additions.

Can the Pac-12 get an extra College Football Playoff spot?

The two-member Pac-12 cannot qualify for one of the automatic CFP spots for the highest ranked conference champions in 2024 or 2025, only the seven at-large spots. For 2026 and beyond, the College Football Playoff is working under a new ESPN agreement that was signed by the conferences earlier this year, which sets aside more money for the Power 4 leagues, with the SEC and Big Ten earning a bigger cut the rest, while Group of 5 schools will receive about the same amount of money they do now.

The depleted Pac-12 was not a party to the 2026 agreement. Depending on how its current reconstruction efforts shake out, the other conferences may allocate some money specifically to the Pac-12, though it is not expected to be anywhere close to the amount set aside for the Power 4. The contract also contains a financial look-in clause in 2028.

The original 12-team CFP concept set aside six automatic qualifying spots for conference champions. That changed to five when the Pac-12 got raided. Whatever the size of the field ends up being, it is likely to only guarantee five spots for conference champions, as it does now; there is no expectation among the Power 4 that a sixth automatic qualifying spot would be created to account for an additional conference.

Why didn’t American Athletic Conference schools join the Pac-12?

The Pac-12 hoped to build off the momentum of its first four Mountain West acquisitions by looking east to create a “Best of the Rest” non-power conference. Memphis, Tulane, USF and UTSA heard pitches from the league, but the four schools on Monday announced they would stay with the AAC, as did the rest of the conference.

Pac-12 consultants projected $10 to $15 million annual revenue for each school through the new league’s television deal (up from $7-8 million for legacy AAC schools and $6 million for Mountain West schools). But it was just a projection. The Pac-12 doesn’t have an active TV deal that will extend into 2026. It’s all hypothetical. That unknown, combined with the increased cost of travel, the AAC’s secure ESPN contract and AAC exit fees that could cost more than $20 million, was too much to convince the four to leave.

Why did the Pac-12 add Utah State?

Without the AAC schools, the Pac-12 turned back to more Mountain West options.

The Mountain West, set to be losing four members, worked to secure the commitment of its remaining eight members through a grant of rights or another financial agreement. With $111 million in exit fees ($18 million each) and poaching fees ($43 million) coming the conference’s way from the Pac-12, that money could convince members to stay. As revealed in the Pac-12’s lawsuit, the Mountain West sent a letter to the Pac-12 on Sept. 12 noting that $43 million in poaching fees would be due, per the scheduling agreement.

Most of the Mountain West committed to staying, including Air Force. But Utah State broke ranks and decided to join the Pac-12. The Pac-12’s first public acknowledgement it added Utah State came in Tuesday morning’s lawsuit. The official announcement came Tuesday night.

As a result of Utah State’s departure, the agreement between the rest of the Mountain West doesn’t seem to apply, because it wouldn’t technically be a qualifying league with only seven members.

Why did the Pac-12 file a lawsuit against the Mountain West?

The Pac-12 wants to avoid those poaching fees, which are now up to $55 million with the addition of Utah State. The Pac-12’s legal argument is that the Mountain West forced a vulnerable Pac-12 into signing a lopsided agreement with the poaching fees, which are anti-competitive and an antitrust violation.

“The Poaching Penalty saddles the Pac-12 with exorbitant and punitive monetary fees for engaging in competition by accepting MWC member schools into the Pac-12,” the complaint reads. “The MWC imposed this Poaching Penalty at a time when the Pac-12 was desperate to schedule football games for its two remaining members and had little leverage to reject this naked restraint on competition. But that does not make the Poaching Penalty any less illegal, and the Pac-12 is asking the Court to declare this provision invalid and unenforceable.”

The Mountain West and Nevarez in a statement said the Pac-12 knew what it was signing up for and that the provision was all about protecting the Mountain West.

“The Pac-12 has taken advantage of our willingness to help them and enter into a scheduling agreement with full acknowledgment and legal understanding of their obligations,” the statement said. “Now that they have carried out their plan to recruit certain Mountain West schools, they want to walk back what they legally agreed to. There has to be a consequence to these types of actions.”

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What’s next?

The next realignment domino is UNLV. The feeling in the Mountain West entering the week was that the Rebels would stay, but Utah State’s jump upended the Mountain West’s plan. Without a full eight-team conference, it might not be worth staying. The Pac-12 lawsuit could force a settlement, but these legal challenges always take a long time, so a resolution is not expected anytime soon, meaning those poaching fees won’t come soon.

Air Force could be in the mix for the Pac-12 or the AAC as well. The Pac-12 has had conversations with Gonzaga as a non-football member, people familiar with the conversations told The Athletic. The Mountain West can’t move toward expanding itself until it knows its current membership.

The Mountain West could vote to dissolve itself with a vote from three-fourths of its membership, which would remove all the fees, but it’s unclear how possible that procedure would be amid five defections. The point of leaving the Mountain West for the Pac-12 was to leave the league’s least valuable schools behind. The filing of the lawsuit made clear that remains the goal.

(Photo: Ian Maule / Getty Images)