- February 28th, 2023, 10:32 am
#652091
Just keep in mind, that any MWC institutions that leave that league are going to owe roughly $16M in exit fees. That's not pocket change for the likely schools that would align with Wazzu & Oregon State. And it is not like there is some big pile of money sitting on the table left behind for WSU/OSU outside of tourney credits. They can't even negotiate a decent media deal with everyone still on board today. Perhaps the tourney credits would be enough to tempt the upper echelon MWC schools like SDSU, Boise, Fresno, Air Force & Colorado State to team up and leave some of the MWC riffraff behind. At that point then you'd likely see the Montana schools and the Dakota States head toward the MWC along with perhaps UTEP & NMSU.
Bottom line, the Pac would essentially become the AAC of the West.
It is not entirely out of the realm of possibilities that Stanford & Cal could go Indy in football with the regionally friendly and hoops heavyweight WCC in everything else for a period of time if the rest of the league collapses around them. They both still are both enough of a draw to schedule well particular with likeminded P5 schools. Now that would be a disastrous outcome for both of those schools athletically. But I am just throwing some hypotheticals out there.
It is very clear that the haves & have nots in the ACC are drawing battle lines with over a dozen years left on their existing Grant of Rights. Leadership at both FSU & Clemson has been public in demanding weighted revenue-sharing in order to maintain membership in the league. Honestly the fact that both of those schools went public within just days is not a coincidence. There clearly is something afoot to challenge the GoR in court and perhaps lawyers at both schools feel they might have a winner. Of course leadership at UVa & UNC have to be quietly cheering on the southern rivals. If the GoR is broken in court, then all heck breaks loose to form the two super-conferences.
Frankly Liberty is not ready for the free-for-all until we get our academic issues resolved. Yes, we have resources and moderate athletic success. But we still have the Junior stains on us as well as they complete lack of academic credibility in our current most senior positions. If we can those issues finally addressed, then we will be ready for serious discussions to rise to higher realms of the college sports ladder perhaps with the Big XII or ACC leftovers.