UNLV and Air Force staying in MWC

December 2014. Sac St students reject funding for new 5000 seat arena 80% against to 20% for.
amp.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article4276742.html

I know you're disappointed in the short term in this apocalyptic scenario and it can seem pretty confusing being so far away and not having the level of familiarity that the rest of the southwest has but I promise you won't be half as disappointed with us in the long haul.  We were somewhat in Oregon St's shoes in the 2012 WAC when we moved up and schools with far less enrollment like SJSU and Nevada were thrown the last life raft for the MWC and LA Tech and Texas- San Antonio got bailed out to go to CUSA while Texas State was left for dead.  

We're a pretty down to earth fan base unlike those you're familiar with from UW, UO and departed Bay Area members.  We're committed to spending whatever money it takes to keep up with the rest of the PAC and moving up a conference only helps us retain and pay a coach who is looking for growth opportunities without being poached so he can continue to pump out 9-10+ win seasons on a yearly basis for the foreseeable future.  Look forward to establishing some long-distance rivalries.  

To the idiots in the media writing that the Pac-7 and the MWC are now essentially equal conferences:

* There have been 10 full-season MWC championship games. Boise, Fresno, SDSU, USU and CSU have combined to win all 10.

* There have been 10 championship-game runners-up. Boise, Fresno, CSU, USU and SDSU have combined for seven of those 2nd-place finishes.

* Our teams have filled 17 of the 20 championship-game berths. Theirs have filled three.

We got the best. They kept the rest.

It's $55,000,000 for the 5. $67,500,000 would be for 6. 

Again, we are not going to pay them anything remotely close to that. From someone on the MWC message board who appears to be a very credible legal source:

"The exit fees and poaching fees that the PAC is supposed to pay to the MWC are known as "liquidated damages" in the contracts world. (Basically, it means that you agree to pay a fixed amount if you breach a contract.) And they are notoriously difficult to enforce.

"Courts usually frown on liquidated damages. They prefer that the aggrieved party prove that they actually suffered X amount in damages as a result of the breach and then sue for X dollars. Case law says that for liquidated damages to be enforceable, they have to be a realistic estimate of the actual damages that the aggrieved party suffered as a result of the breach and not simply a punishment for breaching the contract.

"And given that the MWC is likely to survive as a viable conference, I think it's highly unlikely that they will be able to convince a court that they suffered $100M+ in damages due to the PAC defections.

"To be clear, there is a 100% chance that this will settle long before it gets to that point. Neither side wants to let this go to a judge, much less a jury, because the outcome is too unpredictable. But I don't think the MWC's hand is anywhere near as strong as you think it is.

"From my point of view, if they get 50% of the liquidated damages in these contracts, it will be a major victory. There is a reason that teams basically always pay only a fraction of the contracted exit fees when they switch conferences. Liquidated damages are simply too hard to enforce.

"And that is why conferences have been moving to grants of rights in recent years. Unlike liquidated damages, a GOR is almost certainly enforceable, since it ties the penalty for leaving to actual damages that the conference suffered."

Believe it or don't. But it jives with almost every single legal source I've seen quoted in various stories from many different sources.