The Pac-12 filed a lawsuit against the Mountain West on Tuesday taking aim at a pricey "poaching fee." The suit, filed in the Northern District of California, alleges that the potential penalty is unenforceable under antitrust law.
When the Pac-12 entered a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West last year, the MWC added the poaching fee as a poison pill should the Pac-12 try and take schools from the league. As part of the agreement, the Pac-12 is required to pay more than $10 million per school in damages, which are separate from the $17 million exit fee that schools must pay.
In previous weeks, the league has added five schools from the Mountain West: Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Utah State. Under this agreement, the Pac-12 would owe more than $50 million before even taking into account exit fees from each schools.
The poaching penalty is scheduled to run through at least Aug. 1, 2027. The timing is unusual as the Mountain West's television contracts are scheduled to expire in 2026. Additionally, the Pac-12 is required to add schools to reach the minimum eight participants to be recognized as an FBS conference by 2026. With the five Mountain West additions, the league is at seven. The Mountain West is also at seven schools after the moves.
"The MWC imposed this poaching penalty at a time when the Pac-12 was desperate to schedule football games for its two remaining members and had little leverage to reject this naked restraint on competition," the Pac-12 wrote in its filing. "But that does not make the poaching penalty any less illegal, and the Pac-12 is asking the court to declare this provision invalid and unenforceable."
The remaining Pac-12 schools -- Oregon State and Washington State -- and the Mountain West entered into a scheduling agreement before the 2024 season in order to help create a slate for the two stragglers. The other 10 legacy members of the Pac-12 ultimately joined power conference leagues. As part of the agreement, the Pac-12 schools paid the Mountain West $14 million for 12 games.
The agreement had a second-year option available, but both schools had to opt into the agreement. Ultimately, the opt-in period passed without an extension. The lawsuit alleges that Oregon State and Washington State essentially signed the agreement under duress despite believing that the poaching fee was unenforceable because it had such little time to pull together a full schedule.
"There is no legitimate justification for the 'poaching penalty,'" the complaint said. "In fact, the MWC already seeks to impose tens of millions of dollars in 'exit fees' on MWC schools that depart from the conference. To the extent the MWC would suffer any harm from the departures of its member schools, these exit fees provide more than sufficient compensation to the MWC."
