Merger With Mountain West Could Make Most Sense For Scrambling Pac-12

Speculation about the Pac-12’s future has been rampant since Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Utah, and Washington made formal decisions to depart the conference after this academic year, leaving just four schools remaining.

Those schools — The University of California, Stanford, Oregon State, and Washington State — are tasked with forging new paths, as they now have no full conference schedule in 2024, and bowls with Pac-12 affiliations are exploring other options.

As Cal’s regents meet Tuesday to discuss its future affiliation, one idea picking up steam is a sort of merger between the Pac-12 and Mountain West Conference. 

Cal, Stanford, OSU, and WSU could opt to join the 12 Mountain West teams to form a 16-team football conference that could operate under the Pac-12 name. That scenario could play out if the four remaining Pac-12 schools can’t secure moves of their own to the likes of the Big 12 or ACC, which was eyeing Pac-12 schools last week. 

An unlikely alternative would be to handpick other West Coast schools like Boise State and San Diego State to bring the Pac-12 back up to at least 10 teams — Mountain West schools have exit fees of more than $30 million if they leave in 2024, and no new Pac-12 media deal would conceivably cover the costs to make that worth the move.

The Mountain West’s current media rights deal is with CBS and Fox, which are paying a combined $45 million annually through 2026 — a fee that would likely be renegotiated if schools were added.