LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Mountain West Conference is coming to Las Vegas.
According to a grant of rights agreement, the conference will move its offices "as soon as practicable after the expiration of its existing office lease in Colorado Springs, Colorado."
The conference offices will remain in Las Vegas through at least June 30, 2032.
I spoke to Mountain West officials who said they have been looking for a new home since January 2023 and they picked Las Vegas since they "wanted to have a central footprint."
Mountain West Memorandum Of Understanding by jarah.wright on Scribd
As part of the MOU, the Mountain West Conference's basketball championships will be played in Las Vegas. However, that's not out of the ordinary. The conference was formed in 1999 and they've held men's and women's basketball tournaments at the Thomas & Mack Center for 22 of the 25 years that they've existed.
Starting on July 1, 2026, when this agreement goes into effect, there will be at least eight teams in the Mountain West Conference.
That includes:
- Air Force
- UNLV
- Nevada
- New Mexico
- San Jose State
- Wyoming
- Hawai'i
- UTEP
According to conference officials, Hawai'i will only be in the Mountain West Conference for football so they're looking for one more Football Bowl Subdivision school to add to the conference in order to maintain its FBS status.
I asked if there was a deadline to find the last school to round out the conference and was told it would be in 2028. However, Mountain West officials said they don't expect it will take that long to find the last member since discussions are underway with several schools.
The MOU will provide stability to the league and give schools different amounts of money as an incentive to stay in the Mountain West, conference officials told me.
At least five schools will exit the Mountain West Conference in July 2026 and head to the Pac-12.
That includes:
- Colorado State
- Boise State
- California State University - Fresno
- San Diego State
- Utah State
Each of those schools will pay exit and withdrawal fees to the Mountain West and that equates to $17 million to $18 million per school.
You may remember that last month, the Pac-12 filed a lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference for imposing a "Poaching Penalty". The fees were put in place in the Mountain West's scheduling agreement with Oregon State and Washington State, the only current Pac-12 members this season.
Those fees, which would be in addition to the exit and withdrawal fees, start at $10 million and increase by an increment of $500,000 for every additional school the Pac-12 adds from the Mountain West.
"The Poaching Penalty is an unlawful horizontal restraint on competition," the lawsuit reads in part. "Not coincidentally, the Pac-12 is the most logical competitor conference for members of the MWC to join, given the geographic proximity and makeup of the universities."
The suit also claims that if the Pac-12 is forced to pay the penalty, it will "have diminished resources to rebuild and maintain its longstanding status as a leading conference."
You can see the full lawsuit below.
Pac-12 Lawsuit by jarah.wright on Scribd
In addition to those fees, Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould claimed the Pac-12 was already paying above-market prices to schedule games with Mountain West Schools for the 2024-2025 season just so their student-athletes could compete.
On Sept. 24, 2024, Gould sent a letter to Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez where she outlined why the lawsuit had to filed.
"I want to reiterate that the Pac-12 continues to value its relationship with the Mountain West Conference and the scheduling agreement we have in place for our student-athletes for the current season," Gould writes in part. "The Pac-12, like the MWC, is committed to service its member schools and student-athletes; it is this commitment that prompted the scheduling agreement with the MWC for the 2024-2025 season and it is this commitment that caused the Pac-12 to agree to pay above-market prices for the games it scheduled with the MWC. The penalties you are demanding, which had (and have) no place in such a scheduling agreement, are incompatible with free and fair competition and are unenforceable by law."
According to federal court records, an initial case management conference is scheduled for December 24.
