The veil of secrecy surrounding this week’s mediation between the Mountain West Conference and its former pal/now despised pilfering rival Pac-12 is something to behold.
A few months ago, the leagues agreed to go into a closed-door mediation starting this past Monday. Nary a peep has leaked — neither from the Mountain West nor any loose lips wanting to spill the tea (pardon the Gen Z parlance).
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By now there’s usually someone who comes forward with an anonymous tip, one of those “unnamed sources” who violates the code of quiet to share the details. Not yet, not this week anyway.
At stake is tens of millions of dollars and, by all accounts, the future of one — or both — leagues. There are at least three lawsuits pending between them. The one drawing the most flies being the fight of poaching and exit fees.
The Mountain West is banking its future on the wheelbarrow of cash coming its way if Utah State, Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State and San Diego State go through with their planned jump to the Pac-12. Based on an agreement the conferences forged when signing a pact for a football scheduling agreement prior to last season, the Mountain West said it would help Washington State and Oregon State fill out their schedules with MWC opponents so long as the Pac-12 keep its mitts off the Mountain West if and when it looked to expand. Such a move would mean exit fees in the neighborhood of $35 million.
The deadline for the five schools to sign off on the transfer is next week and, by various reports, none have.
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The windfall — anywhere from $55 million to over $100 million, depending on who’s cooking the books — would generate enough overhead for the Mountain West to keep it competitively stable for the time being. A big part of that would go to UNLV and Air Force, a pair of high-profile, low-hanging-fruit targets for Pac-12 expansion who opted to stay in the MWC when the latte sweetened the pot and offered a reward for being loyal.
UNLV has long had its sights set on the Big 12 and would change its tune in no time should an offer roll its way. The school would make an ideal fit in the Pac-12, which needs at least eight football-playing members to be recognized by the NCAA. The deadline for landing that team is still 13 months away, but the list of candidates seems to shrink by the minute.
The University of New Mexico? Not so much. What UNM is in this entire mess is little more than an afterthought. The Lobos don’t move the needle all; their inclusion in any form of conference realignment usually starts with: “Oh yeah, we forgot about those guys.”
The Pac-12’s targets start with UNLV and Air Force, and might include Tulane, Memphis, Texas State, Nevada — even New Mexico State’s name was thrown against the wall by one of the half-dozen podcasts “reporting what we’ve heard from our sources,” this week.
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UNM President Garnett Stokes has lobbied hard for her school’s future, be it in the Mountain West or — well, apparently just the Mountain West. Persuasive, engaging and a lot smarter than most anyone reading this, she’ll fight as hard as she can to keep the Lobos in the best spot possible.
This week, Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes talked to the Corvallis Gazette-Times and suggested the ideal target is eight, maybe nine teams for the Pac-12. To think UNM and its smaller-than-average athletics budget, its historically downtrodden football program, its gutted basketball program, coupled with the state’s perceived identity of poverty and fan apathy (except hoops) is somehow further down the list than schools mentioned above is a tough thing to accept for Lobo fans.
Best case scenario for everyone with a vested interest: A Mountain West-Pac-12 merger that generates a multimedia/TV rights package that surpasses the current deal both leagues will get on their own.
Until then, here’s hoping those top-secret negotiations bear fruit for the good people of the 5-0-5. We all know there’s been enough sand kicked in the fans’ faces to last a lifetime.
