I dont know.
Things that seemed Iron clad in the past, like signing a contract, seemingly don't matter much.
The PACs argument that the poaching fees are excessive might have merit.
The 'we were under duress needing to put together a schedule' argument is a steaming pile of horse manure. Reason being. They literally just put a schedule together for the upcoming season in less time. It doesn't hold water.
The PAC defectors are playing semantics with we never officially announced. 'We never officially announced so we still have voting rights'. Technically they never served the MWC with the official requests to exit. However their ADs have all been quoted, all had public appearances saying 'we are excited about the new PAC. Not to mention all their official social media outlets putting graphics out announcing their intention to leave.
Will the PAC get out of some of it? I'm sure. All of it? No.
They have some 'technicality' outs. Won't argue that. But if it went to trial you cannot tell me you could convince the majority of a jury they were 'under duress'. Also MWC lawyers would have on fat piece of 'gotcha' The PAC defectors are using essentially the same argument the original PAC defectors used claiming they still had voting rights.
Unless PAC media deal comes in at 12-15 million Memphis/Tulane aren't budging as full members. Football only for Memphis? Sure definitely possible. But they need an 8th full member. And this is no knock on Texas State, but it's a long way from creating a pseudo Power conference by adding the AAC 4 and adding just Texas State. A long long way.
Yes and no.
It is a little different this year vs last.
Last year they didn't know where they were going to be until very very late. They were still campaigning to part of a different conference for a while.
This year they knew very early that they weren't signing up for an extension on that agreement, they probably knew they weren't going to extend that agreement last year when they signed it. So they had potentially an entire year to put a schedule together as opposed to months maybe weeks.
There is some legitimacy to the argument of being "bullied".
Now the terms of the scheduling agreement itself in terms of payouts are not contested, but still a part of the big picture when it comes to being taken advantage of. We charge them the equivalent of a top tier SEC/B1G teams. They paid 14 mil for 14 games. Typically OOC games the home team pays the visiting team. So with the lost money of playing a road game and the cost of hosting the games it is like paying 2 mil for the home games without the revenue of the roadies. Which is 2.3.2.5 mil per home game. That's what we get for playing Michigan. Is that fair market value? Hell no! That is exploitation.
I do think they will get some sympathy because no one can deny that the rest of the PAC royally effed them. And they got 65 mil ( down from the agreed 100 mil) and future credits for it. Meanwhile the MW is asking for well over 100 mil in total for taking 5 teams that are worth a fraction of the teams that left.
As for the semantics? Yes they are doing it, but they are also following the written law of the MW contract. They don't officially leave the conference until they declare in writing and pay a fee. They are playing with those rules, but they are members still with voting rights legally. It gives them some protection if say the Big 12 randomly offers WAZZU and OSU to join. So I get why it is there.
As for the payouts? Yes it is a long, long way. But that initial 12-15 mil was without CBS, Fox, and/or ESPN. It looks like at least one of those are willing to be partners. Which makes me think that the pot will get a bit sweeter. How much sweeter? I have no idea, but I do think it will be an easy upgrade for our defectors. A good deal for the Pac 2? Only if they stick this out for a couple of decades to break even.
I don't think Memphis joins. It just doesn't make sense, even if they have a P4 free pass. They are going to get 9 mil for probably a couple of years before that drops, and even for 12-13 mil a year it wouldn't make sense with the travel burden and with likely 18 mil in exit fees.
They could be football only, since they will satisfy the requirements with that, but what they do with the other sports? Big East? ( actually that could make sense), but I still don't think it is worth it to them.
