The Pac-12 is back (sort of)! What to know about the latest round of conference realignment
-
Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
In a surprising move Wednesday night, news emerged that Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State will leave the Mountain West Conference to join Oregon State and Washington State in the Pac-12 prior to the 2026-27 academic year.
This latest round of conference realignment stems from the collapse of the Pac-12 last summer, which was put into motion the year before when UCLA and USC announced they were leaving for the Big Ten.
Here’s what to know about the moves.
Jump to:
What set this in motion? | Finances
Value of the conference | What other schools could join?
What’s next for the Mountain West
What set this in motion?
When Oregon State and Washington State sued the Pac-12 last year for control of the conference board in the wake of eight schools departing, they spelled out in legal filings that they wanted to be able to rebuild the conference. That didn’t mean they definitely planned to execute such a plan. But it has always been an appealing option, even if it was going to be complicated to pull off.
The NCAA requires conferences to have at least eight members, and after the Pac-12 fell apart, it was afforded a two-year grace period to exist below the minimum. That timeline informed how quickly the conference had to move in order to continue to exist.
What do the financials look like?
This is part of why several sources within the industry were doubtful this particular path forward was likely. The way the MWC bylaws are written, departing schools must pay an $18 million exit fee if they give two years’ notice. That number doubles if it’s less than that. The departing schools here expect to owe $18 million each, which is more than $70 million collectively, plus the $40-plus million the Pac-12 will owe the Mountain West in poaching fees that were part of the conferences’ scheduling agreement for this season.
The idea that the Pac-12 (OSU and WSU) and the schools leaving the MWC would commit that type of money was dismissed by many within the industry. Over the past year, multiple sources referred to those fees as a nonstarter for this type of rebuild. Obviously, they were mistaken.
The Pac-12 is expected to be in position to help the schools with the exit fees, in part due to withheld media rights distribution fees to departed members and other conference assets.
How valuable will the new conference be worth to media rights partners?
Here’s where it gets even more interesting. These six schools would not have paid the MWC more than $100 million just to get to this point if they did not feel confident the potential for increased media rights payments would make it worth it on the back end. Keep in mind, too, that it’s likely the MWC will try to withhold media rights distributions for the departing schools over the next two years, as it did when BYU, TCU and Utah all left in 2011 and was set to be the case when San Diego State previously flirted with a move to the Pac-12 last year.
The departing schools are expecting to receive somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million annually in the Pac-12, a number provided to the schools by Navigate, a private sports consulting firm hired by the conference. How accurate that projection is remains to be seen, but it would roughly double what the MWC currently distributes.
Who else will the Pac-12 target?
It will likely aim high and move down the list. Cal and Stanford are the dream acquisitions, but making that happen would be extremely complicated given they just went to the ACC, which is a party in four lawsuits relating to the potential departures of Clemson and Florida State. It’s worth wondering, though, if Cal and Stanford might have any remorse about their decisions to join the ACC given they are receiving just a 30% share of the league’s media rights distributions over the next seven years (in 2022-23, the ACC distributed an average of $44.8 million per school). While the ACC schools are closer academic peers than what the revamped Pac-12 will look like, how much that really matters in the big picture is up for debate.
The more realistic targets are Tulane and Memphis. But those two will need a much clearer understanding of the financial picture to leave the AAC than the threshold used by the four MWC schools. There would be appeal in building the top football league outside the Power 4, but it would still have to make financial sense. UTSA‘s location makes it a good fit.
Among the remaining MWC schools, UNLV is still viewed as a likely candidate to also move. It checks all the boxes, but that it wasn’t in this first wave is telling. The MWC’s position is much weaker today than it was yesterday, and that could be used as leverage to bring in UNLV — or other MWC schools — at smaller yearly distribution rates, a la Cal and Stanford in the ACC. Air Force figures to be the other MWC school that has the most appeal.
What’s next for the Mountain West?
As things stand, its membership will be at eight in two years: Air Force, Hawai’i, Nevada, New Mexico, San José State, UNLV, Utah State and Wyoming. One more defection would take the conference below the required NCAA minimum for which it — like the Pac-12 has now — would get a two-year grace period to grow back to at least eight.
There had been previous speculation that members could try to dissolve the conference — a process that requires a 75% vote — in order to avoid exit fees to join the Pac-12, but that would mean nine teams would have had to be on board. It’s even less likely now given the departing members are not expected to be able to vote.
The money from the Pac-12 raid could help the conference rebuild — using the Pac-12 blueprint — but it’s still too early to say what it will look like long term.
-
Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Tyler Glasnow was put on the injured list Monday with what the Los Angeles Dodgers described as shoulder inflammation, joining fellow frontline starter Blake Snell, who has been sidelined by a similar injury.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Glasnow’s right shoulder is structurally sound but is also dealing with what Roberts called “overall body soreness.”
Glasnow gave up back-to-back homers in Sunday’s first inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates, then was removed from the game after experiencing discomfort while warming up for the second. Afterward, Glasnow expressed frustration at his constant string of injuries and speculated that his latest ailment might stem from the mechanical adjustments he made to improve the health of his elbow.
Glasnow sat out the 2½ months of last season — including the playoffs — with what was initially diagnosed as an elbow sprain, a big reason why the Dodgers were relegated to only three starting pitchers in their march toward a World Series title. Now, he is one of eight starting pitchers on the Dodgers’ injured list.
One of those arms, Tony Gonsolin, will be activated Wednesday to make his first major league start in 20 months. But the Dodgers are short enough on pitching that they’ll have to stage a bullpen game the day before.
“Pitching is certainly volatile,” said Roberts, who added journeyman right-hander Noah Davis to the roster in Glasnow’s place. “We experienced it last year and essentially every year. I think the thing that’s probably most disconcerting is the bullpen leading Major League Baseball in innings. When you’re talking about the long season, the starters are built up to go take those innings down. That’s sort of where my head is at as far as trying to make sure we don’t redline these guys in the pen.”
Dodgers relievers entered Monday’s series opener against the Miami Marlins having accumulated 121⅓ innings, 7⅔ more than the Chicago White Sox, who are already on a 122-loss pace.
Glasnow and Snell aren’t expected to be out for a prolonged period, but their timetables are uncertain. Clayton Kershaw could return before the end of May, but Shohei Ohtani might not serve as a two-way player until after the All-Star break. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki could temporarily assume a traditional five-day schedule, as opposed to the once-a-week routine they’ve been following, but the Dodgers have only four starting pitchers on their active roster.
Glasnow, 31, is in his 10th year in the big leagues but has never compiled more than 134 innings in a season, a mark he set last year. The Dodgers acquired him from the Tampa Bay Rays and subsequently signed him to a five-year, $136.56 million extension in December 2023 with the thought that his injury issues might be behind him.
“Tyler said it — very frustrating,” Roberts said. We’re just trying to get to the bottom of it.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway