So UNLV and AFA are going to stick around as the big boys of our league and the MW survives as sort of a western Conference USA. Let's chew on this a bit.
Revenue split: In the new league, UNLV and AFA will have strategic advantages in terms of the revenue split. We haven't seen the deal, but it appears those two will get a greater bonus payment out of the exit fees, and probably a bigger split of the next media deal. The impact to Wyoming of this is probably negligible. AFA has strategic disadvantages in terms of the kinds of kids they can recruit, so additional revenue to them likely doesn't equate to competitive changes on the court or field. UNLV already has resource advantages, so we probably won't feel that much, either.
The key piece, that will be ignored by most, is that every dollar that flows to UNLV and AFA represents part of a dollar that will not flow to Wyoming. In the post-Maury, post-Mick and Vicki world of UW athletics, every private dollar raised in Wyoming is precious. We've seen CJC membership decline significantly since the late 2010's. I would argue that, under our current impaired leadership, raising dollars at Wyoming is exponentially more difficult than at a school like UNLV or even Reno. We NEEDED all those extra exit fee dollars in order to support our own currently floundering efforts. Giving AFA and UNLV more dollars to spend won't sting, but reducing the dollars we potentially could have received will be a tough pill to swallow. In the long run it's probably a wash so I understand why we agreed to it, but let's have our eyes open about the consequences.
Media Rights: The revenue outlook gets even worse in the context of a 2026 media deal. The way the Navigate consultancy landed at the presumed media rights valuation of the "new" PAC that we've all been reading about is basically this: they took the current MW media rights deal and used it as a comp since the new PAC is essentially the old MW. They looked at media rights inflation in other leagues like the AAC and Big 12 and saw about a 40% rise over the last term of the deal. Then they added a kicker because OSU and WSU still own all the PAC-12 production assets, which increases the value of a deal by reducing costs. Hey presto, they get a deal that works out to about $90 million/year in total. I personally think this is fantasy land, and they will end up with a deal that pays them closer to $7 million to $8 million per year for each school. But what do I know. I'm just a little league coach (who has bought or brokered probably $50mm in tv and OTT advertising over my career, but whatever).
The rights environment for the new MW without the Traitorous 4 is catastrophic. One sports business executive I read described our likely value as a "rounding error." The current media rights package after the addition of the Turner deal pays us more than $5 million per year. Anyone familiar with the linear and streaming broadcast markets knows the money is not infinite. The market is getting tight. So the new PAC will fill the old MW spot in the market when their rights come up in 2026. That will slot us down to something more like the Conference USA deal that pays each school around $750k per year. That's reality. That's the market based on something close to a like-for-like comp. Can Wyoming absorb a $4 million per year reduction in its annual revenue? I suppose, but imagine what that looks like on the field (where we are already non-competitive).
Other Revenue: For years, the CSU home basketball game was the only guaranteed crowd in the AA. That becomes an every other year thing, at best. We'll never see SDSU again. Same with Boise. That changes the basketball revenue picture significantly. Now consider the NCAA units. The MW will likely keep the tournament units earned by SDSU and Boise over the past few years, as that is the precedent that has been set. But the new MW is almost certainly a 2-bid league even in a good year. Most years we're probably a one bid league. That changes the revenue picture over time significantly.
So what?: The PAC is in a jam here and ****ed this thing up flatter than hammered shit. As things stand today, the new PAC-7 has to stay together at all costs. That's the only way to keep the legacy PAC-12 money and ensure themselves of a respectable media rights deal in 2026. They also don't want to add many more schools, because none of the likely suspects raise their rights value in a material way. My guess is they try to poach one more school from somewhere to get to 8, they go to the rights market in 2026, and then they wait to see if the ACC or AAC (in that order) run into trouble.
I do believe there is a small, but shrinking, chance that they complete a full or nearly full merger with the MW. This should have been their play all along. That way they still get a media rights deal in 2026 of something around $6 million per school, but OSU and WSU keep the $255 million in legacy PAC-12 assets to themselves. They could have portioned that out for 10 years and lived in a world where OSU and WSU get around $15 million per year in extra revenue while the rest of us get what the old MW was basically paying. We would have taken that in a heartbeat.
If I'm Gloria and the MW, I go to the PAC people tomorrow and say let's knock all this bullshit off and make medicine. We'll merge into the PAC if you guarantee us a media rights minimum in 2026 of at least $6 million per school. You seven assholes fight over the legacy PAC12 money and assets however you want, and you take larger cuts of the new rights deal so long as we get our minimum. All litigation gets dropped, all exit fees are waived, and we have an actual regional league that makes sense.
Would that be a good deal for Wyoming? Maybe. Maybe not. But goddamn, we're ALREADY agreeing to a reduced-split, little brother deal with AFA and UNLV. WHY WOULDN'T WE EAT A LITTLE CROW AND DO THE SAME DEAL WITH THE PAC?
Christ! Does anyone in Laramie or Colorado Springs have any ability to think strategically AT ALL?!?!
