What Is The Future Of Mountain West, Pac-12?

We look at all sorts of options

Contact/Follow @MWCwire

Will there be a merger?

The epicenter of this round of realignment is somewhere along the banks of the Red River. When Texas and Oklahoma bolted for the SEC, it shifted the ground underneath the NCAA. This set the Big 12 in motion. What started as a desperate attempt to reload and survive, became a murderous revenge tour. 

Texas and Oklahoma also set the precedent for schools leaving one Power Five conference for another, which set the stage for UCLA and USC leaving the PAC-12 for the Big Ten.

In the wake of all of that, After the Big 12 added BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF to replace Texas and Oklahoma, Colorado announced it would rejoin the Big 12 and Arizona, Arizona State and Utah will join the conference as well. Oregon and Washington are leaving the PAC-12 for the Big Ten. 

Through its surge, Realignment crept closer and closer to the Mountain West until finally, it was so apparently imminent that San Diego State formally announced its intention to leave the conference, presumably hoping for an invite from the PAC-12. The invite never came, and upon the crumbling of the PAC-12, the Aztecs had to backpedal and rejoin the Mountain West. 

After getting alarmingly close to harming the Mountain West, conference realignment left it unphased. As football season begins, it seems the conference is safe…for now. The teams are content, the conference is content, and everything is in place. 

As of now, the incentives for individual schools are aligned with the incentives for the conference itself. Currently, the PAC-12 is in an unstable state of confusion and the other major conferences seem to have lost their appetite for expansion. So, with nowhere else to go, the schools in the Mountain West are perfectly happy staying put. This aligns perfectly with the wishes of the conference, as it is very interested in keeping the band together.  

The danger arises among the ranks of the Mountain West schools when this balance is no longer in place. If the PAC-12 starts to rebuild or if another conference finds itself looking at Group of Five teams to invite, the best-case scenarios of the individual teams could be at odds. 

Because of the aligned incentives, and the structure of the conference, the Mountain West is in a really healthy place. The conference is structured in such a way that it reduces the risk of teams abandoning the conference, and if it fails to do that, it ensures the remaining teams are well-compensated for the departure.  

Right now, the steep buyouts are keeping the conference intact. It is downright expensive to leave the Mountain West. With one year’s notice, leaving the conference costs $34 million. With two years’ notice, the cost drops to $17 million. That $34 million price tag is a troublesome figure for any parties interested in breaking up the Mountain West. 

Although the Mountain West is healthy and conference realignment may be nearing a standstill, it’s not down yet. Going forward, the Mountain West has basically three scenarios. Combine forces with the remaining PAC-12 schools, lose teams, or stay the same. Each has countless potential variations, and there are some other far less likely possibilities, but for now, these remain the three most possible general outcomes. 

The unavoidable truth is that the remaining PAC-12 teams need a place to go, and the Mountain West would be happy to oblige. This scenario is probably the fan favorite and is by far the most fun to speculate about. However, it also has the most moving parts. 

This could happen in one of two ways, the Mountain West could add displaced teams, or, more preferably, the PAC-12 and Mountain West merge. It’s far from impossible, but merging two conferences is no easy task. 

The remaining teams seem bent on rebuilding the PAC-12, so that could put a damper on merger plans, but it becomes much more likely if Cal and Stanford get invited to the ACC leaving just Oregon State and Washington State behind.

Cal and Stanford want nothing with most of the Mountain West teams, but with them out of the way, a PAC-12/Mountain West merger becomes very realistic. 

A merger would put the conference in a great spot. The PAC/Mountain West conference would be able to retain the assets from both conferences, meaning, among other things, the Mountain West’s media rights deal and the PAC-12’s name, legacy, and logo. According to the current media rights deal, the new PAC/Mountain West would be able to immediately renegotiate a higher pay as soon as members were added, with the possibility of adding a third provider. 

The contract ends at the 2025-2026 athletics season, at which point the conference would be back on the open market and could fetch a much higher price tag than the current one. 

Expansion beyond a merger is possible as well. In the current climate, conferences seem to be getting bigger and bigger. It would be foolish for the PAC/Mountain West to blindly follow the fad, but it could emulate the pattern in its own way. 

Being careful not to overextend itself, the newly merged conference could look at adding additional full members from the American or CUSA or it could explore adding a few non-football members from the AAC or WCC. Or, it could look at both. 

If the American takes another hit and the Mountain West merges with or adds the remains of PAC-12 schools, it could stand to benefit.

With SMU potentially on the move to the ACC with Cal and Stanford, the PAC/Mountain West could look for a pair of additions from the American as well. Memphis, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, and UTSA would all fit in geographically and could add value. 

With Gloria Nevarez’s connections in the West Coast Conference, the new conference could look at Gonzaga, who entertained a Mountain West invitation in 2018, or Saint Mary’s. Both have excellent basketball programs that would fit in perfectly with the basketball culture of the Mountain West. San Francisco, Portland, and other teams could potentially be formidable additions as well, if the conference is interested in looking beyond Wichita State, Gonzaga, and Saint Mary’s. 

This could potentially work out in a number of ways but could end up with the conference having 15 full members, 1 football-only, and 3 non-football for a total of 16 football teams and 16 basketball teams.

Although the Mountain West is healthy, it’s not out of the woods yet. Losing teams is a very real possibility. Teams rumored to have earned interest from other conferences have included just about the whole conference, at one point or another. The most commonly discussed schools seem to have been San Diego State, Boise State, Air Force, UNLV, and Colorado State. 

If the PAC-12 somehow survives, it will almost inevitably add from the Mountain West, but it’s just too expensive to take more than a handful. The PAC-12 has no leverage and isn’t going to be able to pay that in its current state of exodus. 

It’s not worth it for another conference to subsidize a team’s departure from the Mountain West, but it’s downright crippling for the teams themselves. $34 million, or even $17 million, is a lot of money to pay, especially for a marginal improvement, so teams wouldn’t be eager to pay that price without a significant guaranteed improvement. 

From the conference’s perspective, however, the conference is structured favorably and would be well-equipped to handle the worst-case scenario. Getting paid up to $68 million to replace San Diego State and Boise State, for example, with two to four teams from a pool consisting of North Dakota, North Dakota State, Rice, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, UTEP, UTSA, Memphis, Montana, Montana State, New Mexico State, and more, certainly softens the blow of losing teams. 

Of course, inaction can sometimes be the best course of action. As boring as it seems, in all reality, sticking with the status quo would be a huge win for the conference. When it’s survival of the fittest, staying alive is getting ahead. 

As it stands now, the Mountain West is already set to see an increased standing on the national stage and in the West. The consolidation of the power conferences has, as of now, all but eliminated one of the top conferences, moving the Mountain West up by default. 

If the PAC-12 does survive, it probably does so by raiding the American more than the Mountain West, which would make the Mountain West better by comparison. 

So, if the Mountain West does lose teams, it will likely only be a few teams and the conference will be compensated handsomely. 

The bottom line is that the Mountain West is very healthy. For better or for worse, the steep cost of departure has taken the next steps of realignment out of the hands of the conference. For the foreseeable future, the Mountain West isn’t in control of its own fate. At least, not actively. As conference realignment continues to unfold, the future will begin to become more clear.  

At least for now, with the football season finally kicking off, fans of the Mountain West should be able to kick back and enjoy the season knowing that the conference is in a good place. 

Story originally appeared on Mountain West Wire