Colorado St., Utah St. take legal action against MWC over exit issues
Dec 17, 2024, 04:04 PM ET DENVER– Colorado State and Utah State have filed a lawsuit saying the Mountain West is taking part in “amazing and unauthorized actions” to punish the 5 schools leaving the conference for the Pac-12.
Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Utah State announced in September they planned to sign up with the Pac-12 in 2026. The suit filed Monday in Colorado state court by Colorado State and Utah State says the Mountain West and commissioner Gloria Nevarez have actually neglected the league’s laws to punish those five schools “in a desperate attempt to avoid more subscription departures.”
The grievance states the Mountain West is threatening to withhold 10s of millions of dollars due to the departing league members, including declining to reimburse them for travel and other costs in connection with postseason football games.
“This flouting of the Laws and Colorado law is not new,” the complaint says. “It becomes part of the Mountain West’s ongoing efforts to restrict its members’ capability to freely check out the very best choices in the market for their student-athletes and punish certain members for announcing their intent to withdraw from the Conference.”
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The complaint states the Mountain West is looking for to need the leaving members to pay exit costs “equal to three or six times the average circulation the Mountain West paid to its members in the preceding year, which might vary from $19 million to $38 million per resigning member, in spite of the fact that such Exit Charge bears no relationship to the purported harm from Complainants’ withdrawal from the Conference.”
O’Melveny, the law practice representing the complainants, said in a release revealing the claim that Nevarez and the Mountain West also have frozen the five leaving schools out of board conferences and have actually operated in secret to break their rights as league members.According to O’Melveny,
the Mountain West and Nevarez have made side arrangements that assure the 7 staying conference members countless dollars”earned by and owed to the 5 departing members.”The suit charges that the Mountain West has declined to turn over board minutes and other business records, hence breaching Colorado law.The separation of the Mountain West happened following the implosion of the Pac-12, with every member school aside from Oregon State and Washington State leaving for the Big 10, Big 12 or Atlantic Coast Conference.As the Pac-12 tried to restore, it hired members from the Mountain West.The seven Mountain West schools that signed a
memorandum of understanding to remain were Air Force, Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State, UNLV, Wyoming and Hawaii.