Is Boise State laying groundwork for MWC exit?
ANAHEIM, Calif. – Maybe this is all just one big Bronco bluff. Maybe the complaint Boise State filed last week in an Idaho court against the Mountain West Conference alleging bad faith and breach of contract is just a ploy to get back to the negotiating table so they can keep their sweetheart television deal in perpetuity. Maybe all of the posturing and loaded language about considering their options is as phony as a piece of blue turf.
But this much is true: Boise State’s grievances with the Mountain West are adding up, culminating with the league’s plan to eventually phase out the special financial treatment the Broncos have enjoyed as the ink dries on a new TV contract with Fox Sports and CBS.
This much is also true: The Mountain West’s peer league, the American Athletic Conference, is watching this soap opera closely, considering whether the time is right to make a play that would significantly strengthen its brand as the best football league outside the Power Five, kneecap its rival and fill a hole in its membership that was created when Connecticut announced it was leaving last summer.
Within AAC circles, the question of whether Boise State would make sense as a football-only member has become an informal but significant topic of conversation in recent days.
Yes, that’s right – seven years after Boise State reneged on an agreement to join the crumbling Big East, whose schools eventually reformed as the AAC, it’s within the realm of possibility that the Broncos could end up flirting with them again. That’s also a big part of the plot line.
When Boise State re-entered the Mountain West, it used its leverage to secure an agreement that allowed the TV rights to the Broncos’ home games to be negotiated separately and returned to them as bonus money totaling $1.8 million above the regular conference distribution. Boise State believes there’s no finish line to that money in its contract within the league and in fact wanted that bonus to be scaled up to a proportionate share of the increased TV revenue from the new deal. Instead, the league voted to end the bonus arrangement in 2026, and Boise State is fighting back with a legal complaint and a threat to explore its options.
In a brief conversation at the NCAA convention Wednesday, Boise State athletics director Curt Apsey declined to elaborate on what those options might be beyond legal recourse. Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson said he wasn’t concerned about Boise State leaving the conference and added that everyone should be celebrating a new TV deal that will more than triple the financial distribution for most members.
“I don’t think there is any member of our board that was part of the league when that (initial) agreement was made, so they have a difference of opinion,” Thompson said. “It’ll be resolved.”
Later, Boise State and the Mountain West issued a joint statement saying they are “currently in discussions in hopes of bringing this matter to a resolution without litigation.”
In one breath, this could all be construed as Boise being Boise – a program that has exploited its unique brand at every turn, trying to squeeze the lemon one more time in the absence of interest from a power league.
At the same time, Boise’s actions over the last week have been so provocative they could easily be construed as laying the groundwork for an exit. And unless Boise is prepared to go the independent route – which would shut the Broncos out of an automatic access point to a coveted New Year’s Six bowl game spot – the only possible alternative would be the AAC.
The question then becomes, would the AAC really want Boise State? On one hand, their presidents and athletics directors could make the argument that they don’t really need the Broncos and all of the potential drama that seems to follow in their wake. Even without Boise State, the AAC is generally perceived as the best Group of Five league and its champion has gotten the lucrative New Year’s Six bowl game bid in four of the last five years.
At the same time, there are complications. Shortly after the AAC negotiated a new TV deal with ESPN last year that would have boosted the perschool distribution to about $7 million a year, UConn bolted, opening up a provision that would allow the network to renegotiate terms. That bit of uncertainty, according to multiple people with knowledge of the matter, still hasn’t been resolved. It’s possible that adding a football brand like Boise State would not only make up for the value lost by UConn basketball but potentially increase it.
Also, the AAC can only continue to hold a football championship game as an 11-team league without divisions for two more years without an NCAA waiver. AAC commissioner Mike Aresco has made recent comments indicating that getting back to a 12-team model might be preferable. He did not immediately return a message seeking comment about Boise State’s situation on Wednesday.
There are probably more reasons for Boise State to continue dominating its regional rivals in the Mountain West than playing a bunch of teams two time zones away. On the other hand, the Broncos haven’t been as nationally relevant the last few years, and the AAC’s strength with programs like Central Florida, Memphis and Houston has been hard to overcome. If Boise State was in the same league, it could try to beat them head-to-head instead of in the computer rankings and narrative wars.
Either way, for the first time in a while, it appears Boise State has some options and is going to use them to their fullest extent. And instead of trying to get the Mountain West’s attention behind the scenes, it lit a Roman candle of acrimony that could have major realignment consequences in the coming weeks.
Boise State’s grievances with the Mountain West are adding up, culminating with the league’s plan to eventually phase out the special financial treatment the Broncos have enjoyed