Utah State University and Colorado State filed a joint legal complaint against the Mountain West Conference this week, beginning a fight over millions of dollars in fees owed by the two schools.
The lawsuit filed in Colorado District Court alleges the exit fees the conference says the schools will owe when they leave for the Pac-12 in 2026 are “excessive, punitive, and bear no reasonable relationship to the estimated harm that the Mountain West may suffer.”
In September, five different Mountain West schools announced plans to join the Pac-12. The Mountain West says that each of the five departing schools — USU, CSU, Boise State, San Diego State and Fresno State — must pay between $19 million and $38 million in exit fees. The suit claims those fees would be three or six times the average distribution the league paid to its members in the preceding year, according to the filing obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
USU and Colorado State allege the Mountain West is “harming” the conference realignment marketplace, as programs across the country survey their options in the ever-changing college landscape.
“It is part of the Mountain West’s ongoing efforts to restrict its members’ ability to freely explore the best options in the marketplace for their student-athletes and penalize certain members for announcing their intent to withdraw from the Conference,” the lawsuit states.
The suit also claims that the Mountain West unlawfully and secretly amended the conference bylaws, in an effort to restrict further realignment from the MWC and to justify its ongoing efforts to impose multi-million dollar exit fees.
It also alleges that side deals were made with the remaining conference members — using conference exit fees imposed to USU and others as a surplus — to enrich them for staying in the Mountain West.
This lawsuit is the second to be filed against Mountain West since the Pac-12 raided five of its current member institutions. The Mountain West demanded $55 million from the Pac-12 for “poaching penalties” that were included in the two league’s scheduling agreement.
In September, the Pac-12 fought back against the poaching penalty in a lawsuit that the fees were unlawful and anti-competitive.
