Mountain West, Pac-12 conferences reach lawsuit settlement after early departure

Following nearly two years of legal battles, the Mountain West Conference and Pac-12 Conference agreed to a settlement in early August to put an end to the ongoing litigation revolving around the exit of five Mountain West institutions for the Pac-12.  

According to the settlement, the five former Mountain West schools — Utah State University, Colorado State University, Boise State University, San Diego State University, and Fresno State — will pay the conference a total of $49 million for their exit to the Pac-12, a move that was announced in September 2024 and took effect July 1, 2026.  

The two rival conferences have filed multiple legal suits against each other in the years following the 2024 announcement. While many side complaints are included in the filings, the primary legal action on both sides is regarding the poaching and exit fees due to the Mountain West. 

The agreed-upon $49 million is just under half of what the Mountain West was originally seeking. The conference was seeking approximately $100 million in exit fees from the five schools, in accordance with the conference bylaws that outlines an exit fee of three times the conference’s annual distribution, or approximately $20 million each.  

Additionally, the Pac-12 reportedly agreed to pay the Mountain West between $22 million and $24 million in poaching fees as part of a 2024 football scheduling agreement, according to Mark Zeigler of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Likewise, this amount is just under half of the $55 million in poaching fees the Mountain West was originally seeking.  

The total settlement amount of just over $70 million is approximately half of the $155 million originally demanded by the Mountain West. 

The Mountain West will also be on the hook for a payout in connection with the settlements. The conference bylaws allow the conference to withhold annual distributions once the conference is formally notified of a school’s departure. As such, the Mountain West has previously withheld approximately $6 million in distributions for both the 2025 and 2026 fiscal year, which are typically paid in July. 

This amounts to the Mountain West owing about $2 million to each of the departing schools. 

The Pac-12 and the Mountain West released a joint statement on Aug. 4 confirming the settlement, although exact details have not yet been made public. 

“The Mountain West Conference, the Pac-12 Conference, Boise State University, Colorado State University, Utah State University, and The Board of Trustees of the California State University for the benefit of San Diego State University and California State University, Fresno have reached final agreements to settle all pending litigation among the parties,” the statement reads. “With these matters concluded, the conferences and institutions can move forward with certainty and focus on serving their student-athletes, campuses, fans, and communities.” 

Utah State Vice President and director of athletics Cameron Walker and Utah State University Athletics declined to comment further when contacted by The Utah Statesman.  

The end of the legal disputes come at a beneficial time for both conferences, as the fall schedules for multiple sports begins in mid-August. For both the Mountain West and the Pac-12, that brings the integration of new conference members along with it.  

The cornerstone Pac-12 members of Washington State University and Oregon State University are joined by the five Mountain West defectors, along with Texas State University and Gonzaga University (non-football). 

“It’s everything we wanted by moving to the Pac-12,” Utah State football head coach Bronco Mendenhall said at Utah State’s football Media Day in August. “Relevance. The games matter. People are tuning in.” 

The Mountain West subsequently filled the void with the addition of the University of Hawai’i and the University of Texas at El Paso as full-time members, with the University of California, Davis (non-football), North Dakota State University (football-only), and Northern Illinois University (football-only) joining as partial members. Grand Canyon University (non-football) was also added in 2025 in response to the departures.  

Utah State opens its Pac-12 play in its fall sport seasons, which include volleyball, women’s soccer, and football, with the Aggies first Pac-12 competition coming on Sept. 24 as volleyball takes on Texas State, with the first home Pac-12 matchup on Sept. 26 as volleyball plays Gonzaga.