The future of University of Wyoming athletics became murkier Monday when Utah State University said it’s leaving the Mountain West Conference for the Pac-12 Conference.
The Aggies are the fifth school to leave the Mountain West this month, which now only has seven teams left, including UW.
Then the Pac-12 filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Mountain West Conference, fighting the “poaching fee” that the conferences agreed to that penalizes schools for leaving the Mountain West for the Pac-12.
“The Pac-12 Conference is challenging a contractual provision that it expressly agreed to and acknowledged was essential to the Mountain West Conference’s willingness to enter into a scheduling agreement, all while advised by sophisticated legal counsel,” Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a statement on Tuesday. “The provision was put in place to protect the Mountain West Conference from this exact scenario.”
When the Pac-12 entered the scheduling agreement with the Mountain West last year, the MWC added a poaching fee should the Pac-12 try to take its schools, which requires the Pac-12 to pay more than $10 million per school in damages in addition to the $17 million exit fee that each of the schools must pay.
Under the agreement, the Pac-12 would owe more than $50 million without taking into account the school’s individual fees.
The Pac-12 argues this stipulation is unenforceable under antitrust law.
The Pac-12 conference lost all but two of its members in 2023 in an exodus initiated by the universities of Oregon and Washington.
What It All Means For Wyoming
None of this is good news for UW.
Chad Baldwin, a spokesperson for the university, said he doesn’t expect the school to comment “on this very fluid situation.”
Losing Utah State puts the MWC at seven schools for 2026, one school shy of the eight required to participate in NCAA sports. UNLV had previously planned to commit to the Mountain West, but after Utah State's departure brought the league down to seven, UNLV says it’s going to continue exploring its options. Other rumors are circling abound with Air Force.
Unless Wyoming is invited to the Pac-12, it may continue to find itself in a shrinking conference until the dust settles. If the MWC fully collapses and UW doesn’t get an invite to the Pac-12, the next most likely future home for the Cowboys would be in either Conference USA or the Sun Belt Conference.
Former UW football star Gary Crum, who’s running for the Wyoming Legislature, said based on conversations he’s had with members of the athletic department and school, has strong confidence both that the Mountain West will survive and the Cowboys will stay put.
“I think the University of Wyoming is looking to stay,” Crum said.
‘Very Very Disappointing’
Crum believes there will be a solid core of like-minded teams that will stay loyal to the conference.
He mentioned how the conference will be well-funded from the more than $111 million in exit and poaching fees it’s supposed to receive.
“In the end, we’ll keep the teams that are very, very loyal to the Mountain West, but it’s very, very disappointing,” he said.
From a competitiveness, financial and fan engagement standpoint, UW has fared well in the MWC and offers facilities on-par with most of its competitors.
But Jack Nokes, former public address announcer for Wyoming Cowboys football games, said the school’s Achilles heel will forever be its small population size and mentioned how today’s era of college sports is highly influenced by multimillion dollar TV deals and advertising revenue.
The lack of a large metropolitan area in the state leaves Wyoming without an attractive TV market to sway conference suitors.
“That’s what’s driving this whole thing is the TV market or TV size,” Nokes said. “Wyoming will never fit in there. That’s the thing that really hurts Wyoming the most. We just don’t have the market those guys want.”
This is something that the five MWC-departures of Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State and Boise State all offer.
Changing Landscape
With those schools leaving and some of the other realignment changes that have occurred over the past decade, Wyoming stands to lose its biggest rivalry game against CSU.
Some of the schools that left the MWC in the past have found out that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, experiencing much less success at a higher level of play.
“It makes you wonder if 20-30 years down the road if it will revert back,” Nokes said. “The teams that are going for the money are going to be at the bottom and their fans aren’t going to be happy.”
Nokes and Crum both remember when there were some fears that Wyoming would be left out in the cold when the MWC started forming out of the Western Athletic Conference in 1999, but both said those concerns don’t rise anywhere near to the level of concern facing UW’s future today.
“I think this is more serious today because it does look like UW might be getting left out,” Crum said.
At times, there have also been conversations during some of Wyoming’s darker football years about the school moving down a level entirely.
“I’ve never been one who felt we ought to move down,” Nokes said. “Fans want to see the bigger-name schools and see if we can compete against them.”
UW has often shown it can compete with the biggest schools in football, knocking off Texas Tech last year and Tennessee in 2008.
According to ESPN’s Peter Thamel, the Mountain West had been working to solidify an agreement for its eight schools to stay together, but that proposal fell through when Utah State jumped ship.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
