BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

Scribe:

The entire complaint is visible here:

Read the Pac-12’s complaint against Mountain West over poaching fees it claims are ‘invalid and unenforceable’ - oregonlive.com

 

Thanks! Took me a bit to read it. Three of the four claims are specific to California law, and I am not licensed in California. With that caveat, I think the complaint is well pleaded and the Pac-12 has some very good arguments about certain provisions of the contract - particularly the "poaching penalty" - being unenforceable.

The argument is basically twofold. 1) The Pac-12 signed it under duress due to how close in time to the 2024 season it was agreed to and 2) The poaching penalties are an unenforceable restraint on trade. The first argument is weak, but not out of the realm of possibility. The second argument is pretty strong, in my opinion, and I am curious to see how it plays out.

While we have autonomy to contract away our rights, the courts are generally skeptical of contracts that create artificial trade restraints and the Pac-12 has pretty decent arguments there on the facts that this provision was specific to teams leaving only for the Pac 12 and not other conferences, that the Mountain West was demanding fees well above market value, and that none of this effects the exit fees schools must still pay.

The goal here is likely leverage to negotiate significantly reduced payments from the Pac-12 to the MWC and this is pleaded well enough that I think it gets them there, i e. It won't get tossed by the court right away.

 

WTF? Major teams in his conference were on the brink of jumping to another conference and he's unaware? I'm sure he's busy and all, but sheeze.

 

So much time, energy and money being spent on a U22 football association.

 

Please, ask Wyoming. Keep the CSU rivalry alive. Land-grant, R1 university, keeping with the current academic profile of the new Pac. The Pokes would jump in a heartbeat.

 

The reason I follow all this is because I enjoy the applications of economic game theory. In Econ 101 we are taught that the participants of a market act in their own interest, independent of the interests of their competitors. That is obviously an overly simplistic model but it works for teaching an into course.

Game theory teaches that participants in a market consider the effects that their actions will have on their competitors. I know I just brutally oversimplified but that is the best explanation I can give in a sentence.

Since college football is a closed market and the financial success of a participant is largely based on obtaining entry into a conference with a lucrative television contract game theory becomes important. I am pretty sure that UNLV wants into the Pac-7 because of the chances of a bigger television contract. I am also relatively sure that UNLV would like to damage its competitor, UN Reno. In college sports the dominant school in the state rarely wants its rival to do well.

The problem is that UNLV and UN Reno have the same governing body. Collectively this body wants both schools to do well and join the Pac-7. So they would not allow UNLV to leave without taking UNR along.

But now the PAC-7 has added Utah State. They only need one school to form an NCAA sanctioned conference. The Pac-7 can go to UNLV and say we only will admit you and not UN Reno. IF UNLV declines they will invite some other MW school. Now UNLV can go to their governing body and say that it is impossible to get UN Reno into the Pac-7. The governing body should not both schools back because only one can advance. UNLV is more likely to get permission to leave in this scenario.

SO UNLV gets into a more lucrative conference and also damages a competitor. This is similar to what UCLA did to Cal when the Bruins moved to the Big 10.

 

Unlike what they have done in the past, I think this time the Nevada Board of Regents wouldn't allow the schools to split up. For whatever reason, the Pac doesn't want Nevada. So no deal.