PAC 8?
- Thread starter TimothyC3
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No clue is right (not you, Canzano). He has been spot on at times over the years, like Wilner (I get them confused). But this latest clickbait is the biggest BS I have ever seen. I don't do "X" so don't have the full message. But what BS. Stupid.
I have been thinking this would be the way they could go for the long time.
This for sure will maximize per school revenue, and every conference alignment decision has been dictated by this very thing up to this point. It is all about the money, and if the PAC wants to build a new conference, this would be the way to do it. It also leaves room for later additions perhaps if the ACC blows up.
It is much easier to add schools vs kicking schools out. Which is basically unprecedented.
The biggest drawback to this is the size of the conference would not allow for a conference championship game, which is a pretty big deal. I think it would need at least 10 if not 12 for that to happen. I am too lazy to look that up.
This for sure will maximize per school revenue, and every conference alignment decision has been dictated by this very thing up to this point. It is all about the money, and if the PAC wants to build a new conference, this would be the way to do it. It also leaves room for later additions perhaps if the ACC blows up.
It is much easier to add schools vs kicking schools out. Which is basically unprecedented.
The biggest drawback to this is the size of the conference would not allow for a conference championship game, which is a pretty big deal. I think it would need at least 10 if not 12 for that to happen. I am too lazy to look that up.
When? What would be the mechanism to avoid exit fees? What would happen to the rest of the MW??
Timing is key obvisouly, they would need to strike before the MW can construct their next deal, but the longer they wait, the less expensive it would become.
Taking only 6 MW teams is risky, because those teams will have a tougher job trying to "stall" talks on a new contract, though having the best markets does help somewhat.
But they do have a decent amount of cash to play with, they may feel that biting the bullet and paying the exit fees for the 6 teams will be worth it long term.
As for a conference championship, maybe that will not be a problem.
This is an old article, but I assume this was passed:
"Removing championship game guardrails is considered noncontroversial and will likely be rubber stamped, giving conferences additional flexibility in approving new ways to crown a champion. Most notably, the change would allow conferences to eliminate divisions, an idea that has grown in popularity in recent years.
Present NCAA rules mandate that any football conference with 12 or more members must hold a championship game and split teams into divisions with round-robin seasons for divisional opponents. The NCAA passed legislation in 2016 allowing conferences with fewer than 12 members to hold conference championship games, clearing the way for the 10-member Big 12 to hold a title game between its top two teams from the regular season. "
NCAA oversight committee: Ease conference title game requirements, waive recruiting class size restrictions
The two proposed pieces of legislation will be voted on by the Division I Council later in May
www.cbssports.com
Withdrawl fees?
www.sportsbusinessjournal.com
Rebuilding Pac-12 with MWC schools could cost over $50M due to exit fees
If Oregon State and Washington State are to rebuild the Pac-12 using Mountain West schools before August 2, 2027, it could cost more than $50M in fees.
www.sportsbusinessjournal.com
The wording of contracts is dumb!Withdrawl fees?
Rebuilding Pac-12 with MWC schools could cost over $50M due to exit fees
If Oregon State and Washington State are to rebuild the Pac-12 using Mountain West schools before August 2, 2027, it could cost more than $50M in fees.
If a school accepts "before the two-year anniversary of the contract’s initial term expiration date of Aug. 1, 2025." ... blah, blah, blah.
So, just say August 1, 2027. Was that so hard?
"The withdrawal and termination fees are "waived if the entire 12-school Mountain West is accepted into the new Pac-12” "
The only thing that matters. I can't believe y'all are even commenting on this stupid clickbait X post by yet another washed up sports "expert" looking for an audience. A Pac8 is an idiotic idea.
Pac-12/14 or nothing.
I’m not a fan of adding more than the 8. Unless they can get teams in the East.
There’s a huge drop off in terms of football and TV market for the remaining teams left.
MW will be fine. They can add New Mexico st, Utep, Montana, Montana St. North Dakota St. and South Dakota.
There’s a huge drop off in terms of football and TV market for the remaining teams left.
MW will be fine. They can add New Mexico st, Utep, Montana, Montana St. North Dakota St. and South Dakota.
I have no clue. But at least Canzano gives a source. Also, it really does make a lot of sense based on the current uncertainty with the ACC and potentially the Big 12 once the dominos fall. Maybe part of the old PAC migrates back west. Ultimately it will come down to what the media and TV execs want.
It makes sense except for the $50MM. Where is that money coming from? $8MM+ UNLV would have to kick in. I don't see that happening.
You forgot the smiley (aka I'm joking) emoji. I was unaware that UNLV's aspiration was to drop down to D-1AA.
Seems lean but if you think about it who else would not be dead weight in the MWC (Not trashing programs but TV markets).
I think and expansion fron 8 would include the following candidates.
As unappealing as it would be for a lot of WSU/OSU fans, taking Cal and possibly Stanford back if ACC collapses would seem a no brainer to me.
I think in that scenario you then pursue SMU and try and get UTSA to get into Texas market.
That would be a pretty solid football conference and not a bad basketball conference.
With both Clemson and Florida State suing the ACC and UNC, NCST and Virginia wanting out the ACC is done. What will be the fall out from that?
I love this point. Another reason to keep it small. There will be potential future opportunities to add later.
Honestly would be good for two league in the west as well. Especially with the transfer rules now.
I really don't love the idea of a PAC/ACC merger...But it might be necessary to survive...
Figure ACC implodes..Miami/FSU/CLEMSON/UNC/DUKE/NC STATE (I could be forgetting somebody)
That would leave something like BC, SYRACUSE, PITT, Wake, VA Tech and UVA in limbo. One option that might work.
2 nine team divisions (East/West).
You only play your division (8 games plus your 4 OOC games) Regular season West/East champ play in conference title game. Would keep travel costs in check.
Key points:
If the Pac-2 doesn't sign up for the 2nd year of the Scheduling Agreement which has to be signed by 09-01-2024 then maybe, big fkin maybe, there is some smell to that fart of a tweet. Even if there is a smell then if any kind of announcement is made prior to 08/02/2025 then the Pac-2 WILL have to pay withdrawal fees per the Scheduling Agreement. At that point which MWC team is going to risk paying double the $20 million dollars exit fees for less than one year notice to begin the 2025 Pac-8 football season? No one. We couldn't afford the $40 million dollar exit fee and the Pac-2 would be STUPID to pay the withdrawal fee. If we give notice following 08/02/2025 then we wouldn't be available to join the Pac-8 until the 2026 season provided we are willing to pay the $20 million exit fee at that time. In the mean time the Pac-2 will have to play the 2025 season of football as independents unless they invite some WAC, Sunbelt, AAC, or some other cross country teams. Good luck with that.
This tweet is all nonsense and unbelievable.
How is this any better than the MWC? Honestly, it's like MWC lite... why would TV contracts be any better than with the 10-12 MWC schools? Besides watching Reno and UNM fans cry about being left in the dust, this conference alignment smells like a bunch of programs who are more likely to disband on each other at the next bigger offer than stick together and make a true P5 conference
We just saw Texas and Oklahoma leave for greener pastures. We saw 10 members of a 12 team Pac-12 leave for money. 2 of em said we'll do it with half the money to not be stuck. Why would anyone left, including us in the MWC, expect different than trying to turn the corner to national relevance?
If these 8 teams in a different conference match the TV payout of the MWC (seems like that's the minimum that would happen), at worst, it's fewer schools to split with. Maybe a benefit of this would be to get out from the awful bowl tie-ins. To get out from the poorly negotiated deal with BSU. Fewer mouths to feed from the NCAA tourney revenue that SDSU gives everyone. There's lots of small reasons to consider it. Obviously it has to make sense, and for only 6 MWC teams to leave and be on the hook for $9m per school (assuming Pac2 assist with that?), that means money and exposure above all.
Having possibly the 6 most visible MWC schools plus 2 former Pac 12 teams and losing Reno, SJSU, Hawaii, USU, Wyoming, and UNM isn't the worst thought. It's probably not the best way either, but that's why I'm not an AD or college president... or anything close.
There is a window here, and it isn't that crazy.
The departing 6 schools announce on 8/2/25, and are set to join in 2027 or 2026, not sure on the language there. Then the fees may be as low as 5.5 mil per school. Which I'm sure the PAC could eat some of that.
Pac 2 re-ups their agreement for year2
Even with fees, are the PAC 2 happy about reducing their annual TV contract by half just to not pay fees up front? Are the MW 6 happy to do that as well?
What is stupid is creating a 14 team conference that is already diluted where it would be tough to add possible ACC defector or make an agreement with leftover ACC teams. Keeping things trim keeps those options open for the future.
The reason is simple, money! Competitively it may not be much better than the MW. We would be cutting out some decent football teams and some decent basketball teams.
But taking all of the best markets from the MW is going to drive the per team payouts significantly.
and if they add teams from the ACC fallout that will boost payouts more.
This will still be a huge step down from the power conferences, by a mile. But it could be the best payouts of the rest.
I really wonder what happens if the ACC blows up for the NoCal schools.
They are the only exceptions to the rule of chasing money. They opted to not take any money AND travel across country rather than be shackled with the PAC 2, for seemingly academic reasons.
The suggested new PAC 8 isn't that bad academically, but some aren't very good at all. I can see them going indy before rejoining the PAC again. Which is ridiculous btw, but it would track with their previous decisions.
Or they can finally smarten up ( oh the Irony) and rejoin the league and actually get some money to help pay for the exponentially increased overhead to compete in college athletics.
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.
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It certainly feels like there is some smoke to this fire, or at least they are trying to do this. A few months back it sure looked like a merger/reverse merger was imminent, then negotiations stalled and there hasn't been a peep since. Why wait if this is what they want to do? They are getting screwed in the meantime competitively.
They probably looked at what the bottom line per school would be with that new conference and did not like it. Again makes sense.
They probably looked at what the bottom line per school would be with that new conference and did not like it. Again makes sense.
Is there a copy of the media contract / MWC contract out there that we can see? I don't recall knowing about a reduction in the exit fees while the media contract is still in effect. I think that is what you are saying? The last year of the media contract gives us an exit fee of $5.5 million is what you are saying? So, somehow they eliminate the last year (3 x revenue) exit fee?
You could be right but that is new to me.
Our current contract (besides Boise and Hawaii) pays a little over 3 mil per year, and that was updated in 2019.
Report: Mountain West strikes TV deal with Fox; payouts to increase $2 million annually
The Mountain West is moving from ESPN to Fox Sports in a deal that will increase the payout per school by about $2 million annually. Sports Business Daily broke the news Monday, reporting the conference has reached an agreement with Fox Sports and CBS Sports Network, which renewed its package of...
nevadasportsnet.com
* *Edit: the Deseret news said the value was closer to 4 mil, but that could be including the PAC games**
- The Mountain West’s current media contract with Fox and CBS, which runs until 2026, pays out $4 million per school per year. That number is clearly not satisfactory for league members going forward.
I don't know the language, but the basic worth.
The value basically increased from the PAC guaranteed games to much more than that. But that is temporary, If we started in the New Pac 8 in 2026 we would not be on the hook for that unless there was another contract. Also the current MW deal would be over as well, so the MW has very little leverage.
I am guessing that the 5.5 mil may be a standard exit fee that would be addition to any left over TV contract funds. Not sure on that, but base on that article I can see that being the case. It is very possible there would be NO fees without a contract.
Add WAZZU and OSU to the current MW, how much is that contract worth? 5 mil per school? It would go up, and there may be generally increased value for college contracts these days vs 5 years ago, but I doubt it gets above 5 mil per school.
The new Pac 8 being worth 10? I can certainly see that.
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Our current contract (besides Boise and Hawaii) pays a little over 3 mil per year, and that was updated in 2019.
Report: Mountain West strikes TV deal with Fox; payouts to increase $2 million annually
The Mountain West is moving from ESPN to Fox Sports in a deal that will increase the payout per school by about $2 million annually. Sports Business Daily broke the news Monday, reporting the conference has reached an agreement with Fox Sports and CBS Sports Network, which renewed its package of...
The new Pac 8 being worth 10? I can certainly see that.
But why... Just speaking in pure terms of markets and schools, unless in the next 2 years the G5s get competitive in both major sports and turn their invite into the Playoff something other than just getting thumped by a Top 10 team. If youre a TV executive, why shell out for the lower tier conferences that dont exactly have premium markets and who arent competitive vs the larger P4 schools. The closest comparison might be tv contracts for FBS vs G5s.
If there was really that much interest for the TV/alumni markets that WSU and OSU have, then they would've been included in Big 10 or Big 12 expansion and left behind by their bigger cohorts. I know thatll hurt our WSU friend to hear, but this is what makes the expansion conversation into a slimmer version of the MWC not exactly much better than say incorporating those 2 programs and adding to get to say 16 teams where your conference is a de-facto Div 1-B on its own...
There is a HUGE, HUGE gap here. Are the PAC 2 worth 50-80 mil per year? Or the 30 that the Big 12 might be starting with Absolutely not.
But that doesn't mean they aren't worth more than 5 per year. With the rest of the previous Pac 12, they turned down a 30 mil per team contract. Now that is a mean between all of the schools, but I doubt the dragged down the rest of the members THAT much.
They are established, big state schools in not the tiniest states. That have decent histories and fan bases.
Not being a power conference do drops things significantly, but even with that, 10 mil per school sounds about right to me.
Love the insight on this you fellas are bringing to the board. End of the day UNLV needs to continue its football momentum and opportunities will only grow.
But I'm not talking a huge gap. Im talking about the new Monopolization of Power amongst the P4s who now have consolidated into an even tighter group of competing powers. They've essentially created a secondary tier competitively between them and the G5s. If I'm a TV executive moving forward into that new reality that they've negotiated with those 4 conferences, why would I throw more money at these smaller programs/markets? Might it be a small increase than currently, maybe, but again, G5s have essentially become more competitive versions of FCS schools compared to the Big 4 and I expect future TV negotiations to reflect that current difference between what are G5 contracts and the FCS conferences and their media deals. That's why ultimately unless there is some sort of NCAA governance change, the P4s will become their own division of NCAA or their own league entirely, and everyone else will once gain fall into a subdivision category. The Pac-12s break up isnt an opportunity to reform a slimmer but more competitive league with more dollars because it gets viewed on the same competitive level as the P4, it was the death of a really true NCAA D1 and the first step towards the creation of a league of their own.
That PAC8 would be a pretty solid league.
But 8 teams means no football championship game, and no championship game means you're going to get less money.
You have to have 12 teams if you want a title game.
Ideally the ACC explodes. You add Cal and Stanford + two other teams looking to move up, but if you want to dip into Texas, you'll almost have to go at last 14 teams to give them some regional travel partners. SMU and UTSA means that New Mexico and Tulane or Utah State make a lot of sense for travel partners.
Gun to my head, I think the 16 team WAC with rotating 4 team blocks was the most elegant way to handle a lot of these things--just too far ahead of its time.
But 8 teams means no football championship game, and no championship game means you're going to get less money.
You have to have 12 teams if you want a title game.
Ideally the ACC explodes. You add Cal and Stanford + two other teams looking to move up, but if you want to dip into Texas, you'll almost have to go at last 14 teams to give them some regional travel partners. SMU and UTSA means that New Mexico and Tulane or Utah State make a lot of sense for travel partners.
Gun to my head, I think the 16 team WAC with rotating 4 team blocks was the most elegant way to handle a lot of these things--just too far ahead of its time.
September 1st will give us what we need to know about whether there will be a second year of the Scheduling Agreement. If it isn't extended for that second year then this board will go wild in speculation. I'm hoping it doesn't get signed and extended.
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