Pac-12, Mountain West ‘too far apart’ as negotiations over 2025 scheduling partnership break down
Jon Wilner
Sep. 1, 2024 at 9:25 pm
The Sunday deadline for the Pac-12 and Mountain West to extend their football scheduling partnership came and went without a deal.
Don’t expect them to revisit talks at a later date, either.
An agreement for the 2025 season “isn’t happening at all,” according to a source familiar with the discussions. The sides are simply “too far apart.”
Instead, Washington State and Oregon State are exploring other options to complete their 2025 schedules.
However, the source cautioned that the lack of a deal with the Mountain West did not indicate a partnership with the ACC or Big 12 — or any other league, for that matter — was imminent.
Nor does the breakdown in talks rule out the possibility of a longer-term merger, in some form, between the Pac-12 and the Mountain West.
“Don’t rule out something for 2026 and beyond,” the source added.
Washington State and Oregon State are operating as a two-team conference for the 2024-25 seasons, based on the NCAA’s two-year grace period for conferences depleted by realignment. By the summer of 2026, the Cougars and Beavers must join another conference or rebuild the Pac-12 to at least eight schools.
The scheduling partnership with the Mountain West provides both WSU and OSU with six games (three home, three away) for the 2024 season.
In exchange for the competition, the Pac-12 schools will pay the Mountain West approximately $15 million, which includes an administrative fee, participation fee and scheduling fee (for each game in Pullman and Corvallis).
The contract does not include a fee structure for the 2025 season. The payments would have been negotiated all over again, the source said.
But the financial piece wasn’t the only hurdle. Extending the agreement into 2025 didn’t fit smoothly within the Pac-12’s long-haul strategic plan, which leans heavily into remaining as flexible as possible — in case of additional realignment — and preserving the cash to act on any opportunities.
As part of their settlement with the 10 departed schools, Washington State and Oregon State are withholding a total of $65 million in campus distributions. That cash could be used to pay all, or a portion of the poaching penalty.
Additionally, the Cougars and Beavers have more than $150 million in assets at their disposal (over the course of several years) from the Pac-12’s postseason football and basketball contracts.
“There will be some of those funds set aside that, as different scenarios emerge, we do have some resources available to us for our strategic priorities moving forward and whatever we might need to do to support our conference affiliation strategy,” Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould
said recently on ‘Canzano and Wilner: The Podcast.’
For next season, the Cougars and Beavers are exploring a plethora of options and need a total of 12 games (combined) to fill out their schedules.
At this point, WSU has six opponents lined up for next season: North Texas, San Diego State, Idaho, Washington, Virginia and Oregon State.
The Beavers also have six under contract: Cal, Fresno State, Houston, Texas Tech and Oregon, plus Washington State.
Jon Wilner:
jwilner@bayareanewsgroup.com
www.sandiegouniontribune.com