Despite not requiring the matter to be settled by a fight to the death between mascots (Huskies versus Bulldogs? Aztecs against Rainbow Warriors? Big Blue and the Bison?), the Pac-12 and the Mountain West Conference requested a pause on their dueling pending lawsuits, having reached an agreement in principle over alleged poaching fees that totaled $55 million in fines. The joint statement of the potential settlement, made on May 18, 2026, came a day before a scheduled discovery hearing in the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of California.
If a compromise has indeed been reached, it will bring an end to a sometimes bitter and contentious battle between the two NCAA college sports conferences, both of which saw their memberships change significantly over the past few years. It would also pave the way for Boise State, Utah State, Colorado State, Fresno State, and San Diego State to finish their transition to the Pac-12 Conference. The five schools will join existing members Oregon State and Washington State, along with other new members Texas State and Gonzaga (the latter for all sports except football), which are making the transition without the legal drama.
Depending on which side of the field you’re sitting on, the most important issue in the legal tussle was either exorbitant exit fees that were imposed at a time of vulnerability, or an entity standing for its own advocacy as a rival sought to make itself stronger at the other’s expense. A quick resolution allows both conferences to move on to the 2026-2027 seasons without lawsuits hanging over their heads.
Wait, We Get To Play an Away Game Against Hawaii? Sign Me Up!
In addition to giving students something to root for and alumni something to brag about, college athletics serve as an extremely lucrative source of income for institutions of higher learning. Power conferences like the Big Ten, the Southeastern Conference (SEC), and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) attract the best players, the biggest media rights deals, and the most attention through perennial powerhouse schools like Penn State University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Florida. These conferences tend to dominate Division I NCAA sports, but they're not the only ones out there.
Division I schools that aren't athletically on par with those in the power conferences are sometimes called “mid-major” schools, though upsets aren’t unheard of. There are currently 24 conferences for mid-major college athletics, with some considered “high-major” for certain sports. They include the Ivy League, the Big Sky Conference, and, of course, the Pac-12 and the Mountain West Conference. As the fortunes of certain colleges rise, they may seek to move to a more highly regarded conference for greater exposure and revenue. This may leave some conferences scrambling to refill their ranks.
Extortion Is Such an Ugly Word
Such was the fate of the Pac-12 after the 2023 season, as most of their teams flew the coop for greener pastures. With only Oregon State and Washington State left in the fold, the Pac-Far-Less-Than-Twelve found a savior in the Mountain West Conference, which offered a scheduling agreement for the 2024 season that ensured the two teams would have a full slate of games. In return, Mountain West included a stipulation that the Pac-12 would be required to pay a poaching penalty for any of the conference’s teams it convinced to jump ship in the future. It set a rate of $10 million per team poached, with an additional $500,000 tacked on for each ensuing defection.
Early in the 2024 football season, the Pac-12 may have made its intentions a little too obvious by filing a lawsuit against the Mountain West, claiming that the poaching penalties were illegal under the Sherman Act and the Cartwright Act as duplicates of the exit fees the schools were required to pay. The Pac-12 also argued that they’d been taken advantage of at a “vulnerable time.” Mountain West’s countersuit essentially argued that the Pac-12 knew what they were agreeing to when they signed the deal.
As one might expect, there was no scheduling agreement between the two conferences for the 2025-2026 seasons. Instead, the Pac-12 (or Pac-8, or Pac-8.5) announced it would be the new home for the states (Boise, Utah, Colorado, Fresno, and San Diego) starting with the 2026 football season. Mountain West did a little pilfering as well, adding three new teams to play football against the likes of the Air Force Falcons and the University of Nevada Wolf Pack.
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