Pac-12 Conference files lawsuit against Mountain West over potential 'poaching fee'

Pac-12 college football teams will face off with Mountain West Conference teams on the field many times during the 2024 college football season.

Now, the conferences are set to face off in the courts as well, with the Pac-12 filing a legal complaint on Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, per a report from Yahoo! Sports' Ross Dellenger. The Pac-12 is seeking declaratory relief from a judge over millions of dollars in penalties the MWC believes it is owed from the Pac-12 for acquiring five MWC schools.

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In its lawsuit, the Pac-12 described the penalties as "unlawful, unenforceable and a violation of antitrust law." After the Pac-12 lost several teams to the Big Ten Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference in the latest round of conference realignment hailing over college athletics, the Pac-12 announced the additions of Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State from the Mountain West Conference in the last couple of weeks. The conference also has an offer out to UNLV to join. The lawsuit is the first acknowledgment from the Pac-12 of adding Utah State.

According to Dellenger, the suit filed on Tuesday deals with the "poaching fee" MWC commissioner Gloria Nevarez included in the scheduling agreement between the conferences entered into last year. It is unrelated to the more than $17 million in exit fees due for each school.

The poaching fee is reportedly $10 million per school added and increases by $1 million with each new addition. Following the additions of Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Colorado State, the MWC demanded the Pac-12 pay $43 million in “liquidated damages” in poaching fees. With this week's addition of Utah State, the number grows to over $50 million, per Yahoo!

"There is no legitimate justification for the ‘poaching penalty,’” the complaint said, according to Yahoo! “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.”

Over the summer, Oregon State and Washington State ― the two lone leftovers from the original Pac-12 ― agreed to pay the MWC programs about $14 million to play six games. The two sides could not agree on a second year of games for 2025, with the MWC demanding $30 million for the same amount of games in 2025, leading to no agreement.

Following the defection of USC, UCLA, and Oregon, among others, to the Big Ten and ACC, OSU and WSU were forced to scramble to find games and make sure the hundreds of athletes committed to the schools could continue to compete. In the complaint, the Pac-12 said the MWC took advantage of a "disadvantaged and desperate conference." During the negotiations, the schools did not believe the "poaching fee" was legal or forcible.