The Mountain West will free its members from their obligations if they get Power 4 conference invitations and has reserved $18 million to recruit new members.
Those are among the details in the memorandum of understanding — obtained this week through a public-records request — that helped keep UNLV and Air Force from exiting in September, a move that would have put the league on the brink of collapse. Here are some of the new pieces of information from the 11-page agreement (including signatures):
Power 4 departures: The seven Mountain West schools (including football-only member Hawaii) agreed to stay in the conference through June 2032 and sign a grant of rights binding their multimedia rights to the conference. They do, however, have an out.
A member is freed from the memo and the eventual grant of rights if it joins the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 or SEC. UNLV and Air Force have not been seen as major targets for the Power 4, but both were potential expansion candidates for the Pac-12 and American Athletic Conference.
Financial breakdown: The memo explains how the conference will use almost $150 million in fees expected to come its way from the five outgoing members joining the Pac-12: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State. The Pac-12 has sued the Mountain West in federal court in a dispute over more than $40 million in poaching penalties.
The first $61 million will be unequally shared with schools in previously announced splits. It’s 24.5 percent apiece for Air Force and UNLV; 11.5 percent each for Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State and Wyoming; the remaining 5 percent goes to Hawaii. Payouts will start on or before July 1, 2026, when the five departing schools formally leave.
The next $18 million will go into a “Recruiting Reserve” to cover expenses for identifying and luring new members. The conference is adding UTEP but still needs one more school to meet the College Football Playoff’s eight-team requirement to access the five spots given to conference champions.
“The Conference will use commercially reasonable efforts to minimize these recruiting expenses and to distribute any unused portion of the Recruiting Reserve to the Member Institutions according to the percentages used in the First Tranche,” the memo said.
After those first two buckets, the next $21 million will be split among schools in that same uneven format. The conference’s legal fees are paid next, and anything left goes back to the members with a new formula: 15.83 percent for the six full members and 5 percent to Hawaii.
The Mountain West also vowed its TV/media rights payouts to schools would not drop from current figures (about $3.5 million per school).
“If necessary, the Conference will utilize a combination of revenue sources to maintain these distributions,” the memo said.
Other details: The conference agreed to move its offices from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Las Vegas “as soon as practicable” after its lease expires. The league will stay in Las Vegas through at least June 2032.
Its basketball tournaments will also be in Las Vegas during the agreement. The event has traditionally been held at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center but was in Denver from 2004 to ’06.
The deal reflects the importance to the Mountain West of UNLV and Air Force. It would only take effect if approved by those two members plus four of the five others. Every school signed it.
(Photo: Ian Maule / Getty Images)
