The fight for survival between the Pac-12 and Mountain West moved from the boardroom to the courtroom on Tuesday when the Pac-12 began legal proceedings against its regional adversary over the so-called poaching penalty included in the football scheduling agreement between the conferences for the 2024 season.
Filed Tuesday in the Northern District of California, the complaint calls the poaching penalty “anticompetitive and unlawful” and asks the court to declare it “invalid and unenforceable.”
It argues that the penalty, which punishes the Pac-12 financially for taking Mountain West schools, was designed “to stifle” competition and create an “artificial barrier to entry” for schools to join the Pac-12 – a barrier that, the complaint states, also harms the Mountain West’s own members by limiting their market value in college football realignment.
The Pac-12 is not seeking damages.
Notably, the conference has retained the San Francisco-based firm Keker, Van Nest and Peters, which represented Washington State and Oregon State in their successful 2023 lawsuit against the former Pac-12 schools over control of the conference. Eric MacMichael, who took a leading role in court for the plaintiffs, is the first attorney listed on the complaint.
The dramatic move comes against a Darwinian backdrop in which the Pac-12, decimated by the departure of the 10 universities, is attempting to rebuild with schools from the Mountain West.
Two weeks ago, four Mountain West members (Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State) agreed to join the Pac-12 starting in the summer of 2026. Based on the poaching penalties outlined in the scheduling agreement, the conference would owe the Mountain West $43 million.
Utah State made the same move on Monday, upping the poaching fee to $55 million, while the Pac-12 remained in hot pursuit of UNLV on Tuesday.
Additionally, the complaint comes more than three weeks after the Pac-12 and Mountain West declined to extend…
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