The Pac-12 and Mountain West US college sports conferences have set aside their opposing legal challenges in favor of working towards a collective legal settlement.
Pac-12 launched a federal lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference back in September 2024 in response to the rival conference seeking to impose “poaching penalties” in excess of $55 million on Pac-12 after five Mountain West schools defected to the reformatted Pac-12 that summer.
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That $55 million figure – made up of $10 million per school, rising by $500,000 for each additional school – was only put in place that season as a measure from Mountain West to prevent large-scale defection, and the Pac-12 had always questioned the legality of the penalties.
The five relevant schools are Boise State University, Colorado State University, California State University, Fresno, San Diego State University, and Utah State, all of which will make their Pac-12 debuts later this year.
Of those five, Colorado State and Utah State had also filed a separate suit against the Mountain West over exit fees (reportedly carrying from as little as $19 million to as much as $38 million) for leaving the conference, with Boise State joining soon after.
That suit will now also be ended, with Pac-12 and Mountain West looking to put together a resolution that covers all involved parties to bring finality to the turbulent period.
Pac-12 is only in this situation as its lack of financial pull had led to ten of its 12 schools at the time departing for other, wealthier conferences.
The conference was on the brink of collapse until a short-term broadcast deal with the CW and Fox Sports broadcast networks – and the addition of five Mountain West colleges to a future edition – helped to steady the ship.
The five defecting Mountain West schools will join fellow new arrivals Texas State, which left the Sun Belt conference, former West Coast Conference school Gonzaga (in all sports except American football), and the two incumbent Pac-12 schools, Oregon State and Washington State, in the new-look competition.
