{"id":1007821,"date":"2026-08-18T03:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T03:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1007821\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T03:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T03:23:10","slug":"mountain-west-5-departing-schools-agree-to-legal-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1007821\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain West, 5 Departing Schools Agree to Legal Settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe five schools leaving the Mountain West Conference<\/a> for the Pac-12 have agreed to pay their former league $49 million, according to a copy of a settlement<\/a> agreement obtained by Sportico.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat amount is roughly half of what the Mountain West originally sought to collect in exit fees and penalties from Boise State<\/a>, San Diego State<\/a>, Fresno State, Colorado State and Utah State. The league\u2019s exit penalties were reported<\/a> to range from $19 million to $38 million per school, depending on the circumstances.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Mountain West had previously withheld $46.9 million, which it accounted for as \u201cmembership exit fees\u201d revenue in its FY25 tax return.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe settlement resolves the litigation the schools filed in Colorado state court against the Mountain West and its commissioner, Gloria Nevarez. Utah State and Colorado State filed the initial action in December 2024. In August 2025, Boise State joined in an amended complaint that added a claim of fraud against both he Mountain West and Nevarez. The complaint was amended again in January, when California State University\u2019s board of trustees\u2014which oversee San Diego State and Fresno State\u2014joined as an additional plaintiff.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder the settlement, the Mountain West will deduct and withhold $9.8 million owed to the each of the five schools from their final league distributions for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. The agreement stipulates that those distributions will be paid within three business days of the Mountain West receiving the separate settlement payment from the Pac-12, which resolved<\/a> the two leagues\u2019 dispute over so-called \u201cpoaching fees.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe financial terms of the Pac 12-Mountain West accord have not yet been publicly disclosed. The two conferences announced they had reached an agreement in principle in May before reaching a final agreement earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe settlement between the Mountain West and the schools provides that the license for game-footage content created before each schools\u2019 departure date \u201cis and shall be owned exclusively by the Mountain West.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe agreement contains a general release of claims related to the litigation and a non-disparagement clause that calls on the schools to \u201cinstruct their respective presidents and athletic directors \u2026 not to make any disparagement statements or representations\u201d about other the parties concerning the lawsuit or the agreement.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe settlement was signed by Nevarez on July 29 and by the presidents of the five schools on July 31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The five schools leaving the Mountain West Conference for the Pac-12 have agreed to pay their former league…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1007822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[43],"tags":[50267,1318,1363,1317,1315,1316,3890,10495,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1007821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-boise-state","tag-football","tag-mountain-west-conference","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-san-diego-state","tag-settlement","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117114372634785196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1007821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1007821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1007821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1007821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}