The Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences are reportedly going to court

As the Pac-12 Conference attempts to rebuild itself, mostly at the expense of the Mountain West Conference so far, the two leagues are heading into a legal battle, according to multiple reports Tuesday.
Per Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, the Pac-12 filed a legal complaint over millions of dollars in “poaching penalties” that the MW argues it is owed for the Pac-12′s acquisition of five MWC schools — Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State.
The complaint has been filed in the Northern District of California, per John Canzano. In it, the Pac-12 argues that the poaching penalty required of it by the Mountain West — per a previous scheduling agreement made between the conference and the MW — amounts to an antitrust violation.
The official complaint, per Jon Wilner of The Mercury News, calls the poaching penalty “anticompetitive and unlawful” and asks the court to declare the penalty “invalid and unenforceable.”
The Pac-12 has retained San Francisco-based firm, Keker, Van Nest and Peters, which represented Washington State and Oregon State in their 2023 lawsuit against now-former Pac-12 schools over control of the conference (and its finances), according to Wilner.
The Pac-12 isn’t seeking damages from the Mountain West, Wilner reports. It just wants the poaching penalties rendered null and void.
“It argues that the penalty, which punishes the Pac-12 financially for taking Mountain West schools, was designed ‘to stifle’ competition and create an ‘artificial barrier to entry’ for schools to join the Pac-12 — a barrier that, the complaint states, also harms the Mountain West’s own members by limiting their market value in college football realignment,” Wilner writes.
The lawsuit is not related to the exit fees that Mountain West schools — including Utah State — are required to pay to the conference before joining the Pac-12, Dellenger notes. Those fees are believed to possibly exceed $17 million per school, with each school being required to foot the bill prior to joining the Pac-12 in 2026.
The scheduling agreement between the MW and the Pac-12 that created the poaching penalties was in response to the near-death of the Pac-12, when Oregon and Washington defected for the Big Ten; Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah left for the Big 12; and Cal and Stanford went to the ACC.
The agreement has Washington State and Oregon State playing MW teams throughout the current 2024 college football season, in place of a normal conference game for MW schools.
Per Wilner, the part of the agreement that includes the poaching penalty reads as follows:
“Accordingly, as a material inducement to MWC’s willingness to enter into and perform its obligations under this Agreement, the Pac-12 covenants and agrees that, if (A) at any time prior to the two year anniversary of the expiration or termination of this Agreement pursuant to Article IV (the “Withdrawal Fee Period”), the Pac-12 makes an offer to any MWC Member Institution (other than an offer to all MWC Member Institutions to join Pac-12 as Pac-12 member institutions … which any such MWC Member Institution accepts, or announces that it will accept, during the Withdrawal Fee Period … the Pac-12 shall pay liquidated damages to MWC in the form of the termination fee as set forth on Schedule 7.”
In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, the Pac-12 argues that that agreement wasn’t exactly made in good faith, per excepts provided by Dellenger.
“There is no legitimate justification for the ‘poaching penalty.’ … In fact, the MWC already seeks to impose tens of millions of dollars in ‘exit fees’ on MWC schools that depart from the conference. To the extent the MWC would suffer any harm from the departures of its member schools, these exit fees provide more than sufficient compensation to the MWC.”
The complaint continues, “In the wake of this mass exodus from the Pac-12 caused by fierce competition from rival conferences, the Pac-12 had only months to salvage the 2024-2025 season and create opportunities for its one thousand student-athletes to compete with other schools.”
Later Tuesday, MW commissioner Gloria Nevarez released a statement regarding the lawsuit.
In it, Nevarez argues that, “it is my responsibility to protect the Conference and always keep its best interests in mind. The Pac-12 Conference is challenging a contractual provision that it expressly agreed to and acknowledged was essential to the Mountain West Conference’s willingness to enter into a Scheduling Agreement, all while advised by sophisticated legal counsel. 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. 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. To say that the Mountain West was taking advantage of the Pac-12 could not be farther from the truth.  The Mountain West Conference wanted to help the Pac-12 schools and student-athletes, but not at the expense of 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. 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.”