If they announce on 8/2/25 that would give us the one year notice to leave the MWC on 8/3/26. I'm not following you on how the fees would be as low as 5.5 million. I wouldn't put it past Gloria to nail us with a bill for about $20 million in exit fees on 8/3/25. Remember they sent a bill to SDSU for $17 million when SDSU was going to leave for an uninvited slot to the Pac-12 the day they gave notice. That is brutal for us to have to pay out $20 million to leave with no media contract in place with the Pac-12.
Still, I don't like that window. September 1, 2024 is that date the Pac-2 has to sign for that 2nd year of the Scheduling Agreement. If they sign then the MWC schools could then give 1 year notice in August 2026 and then we wouldn't be in the Pac-8 until 2027.
If they don't sign in September then the earliest would be Fall of 2026 with exit fees as I mentioned in the first paragraph.
This guy posting on Twitter/X are not putting in the homework to see the finer details of this. They should research before they hit their keyboards.
The fees are based off a contract. We don't have a new contract.
They have established fees to try to protect from teams bailing, but it isn't airtight.
The fee kicks in if the Pac-12 “makes an invitation to join the conference and the school accepts before the two-year anniversary of the contract’s initial term expiration date of Aug. 1, 2025.” The withdrawal fee begins at $10M for the first school and “rises by $500,000 for each school beyond that.”
No mention of a fee after 8/2/25. Without the new contract, the MW only has the remaining year of their contract as leverage. The end of that 2 year agreement is at the end of the 25-26 season.
Re-upping for the second year of the agreement seems like an easy move to make, if they want to reduce the fees. Though I can see them biting the bullet and paying fees up front, because they are getting competitively screwed in these 2 years. No NCAAT auto birth, and a VERY tough road to the college playoff. But add up all of those fees that is 100.5 mil total, probably not worth it. The schools could pay 5 mil a year a piece for 2 or 3 years to subsidize, but the PAC would have to eat some of that.
The departing schools have to stall contract negotiations for another 14 months. Not hard to do, the PAC 12 schools did that very easily. Especially when the departing schools are in the markets with the most clout.
After August the language sure sounds like the big exit fees are completely gone. the 5.5 mil fee makes sense at that point that the article referenced that sounded like a standard fee and would be about the same as one year of the contract money.
If we announce in that window August 2 2025, then it sure looks like the new PAC 8 could start in 2026.
The SDUS 17.5 mil fee was based off the remaining contract. It would have been half if they tried to stay in the MW for an additional year.