The Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences have finalized a settlement over \u201cpoaching\u201d and exit fees.<\/p>\n
The two conferences announced on Tuesday that all sides have reached final agreements to settle all pending litigation. The statement included Boise State, Colorado State, Utah State and The Board of Trustees of the California State University on behalf of San Diego State and Fresno State.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith these matters concluded, the conferences and institutions can move forward with certainty and focus on serving their student-athletes, campuses, fans, and communities,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
The conferences announced an agreement in principle<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n The Pac-12 and some of new the schools joining the conference filed a lawsuit in California in 2024, claiming the poaching clause the league agreed to when it signed a scheduling agreement for its football teams was invalid. The clause called for payments to the Mountain West of $10 million for the first team that left, with the amount increasing by $500,000 for every additional team \u2014 to a total of $55 million. <\/p>\n The scheduling agreement with the Mountain West allowed Oregon State and Washington State to piece together football schedules after 10 schools left the Pac-12 in 2024, leaving the conference\u2019s future in doubt.<\/p>\n The Pac-12 had its motion to dismiss denied<\/a> by Judge Claudia Wilken in November after the sides failed to reach an agreement in mediation<\/a> last summer.<\/p>\n Colorado State and Utah State filed a separate lawsuit \u2014 later joined by Boise State \u2014 against the Mountain West seeking to avoid exit fees ranging from $19 million to $38 million.<\/p>\n Colorado State, Utah State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State are set to leave the Mountain West and join the Pac-12 this fall. The conference added Texas State last year to reach the eight-team minimum to be eligible for an automatic bid for its champion in the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n Gonzaga also is leaving the West Coast Conference to join the Pac-12 as a non-football member this fall.<\/p>\n The Mountain West has added UTEP, Hawaii and Northern Illinois for football starting this fall.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences have finalized a settlement over \u201cpoaching\u201d and exit fees. The two conferences…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,340973,451,149,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-803025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-claudia-wilken","tag-headlines","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}