HawaiiMongoose

Hawaii is well along in its rebuild and just landed a commitment from the Juco Player of the Year, Isaac Finlinson out of Snow College in Utah. I have to think the prospect of playing in the MWC as a senior helped close the deal. More details are here: https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/04/25/sports/sports-breaking/hawaii-mens-basketball-team-lands-jc-player-of-the-year/

I’ve followed NMSU pretty closely over the past 20 years, since the school first joined the old FBS WAC in 2005. Considering the roller coaster that Aggies football has been on, including having to navigate six seasons as an independent, it’s pretty amazing the program is not only still FBS but has actually enjoyed some recent success (bowl appearances in 2017, 2022 and 2023). I give NMSU a bit less credit in men’s basketball since the team’s run of NCAA tournament appearances came during the WAC’s weakest years as a hoops conference, but even so the school’s overall athletic program has performed surprisingly well considering its resource constraints and travel challenges. I wasn’t in favor of the MWC adding NMSU and still am not, but that’s due to the market overlap with UTEP. Hand NMSU some money and put it in a conference that makes sense geographically and the results could actually be pretty good.

Correct. It’s no longer a leverage point for the Pac and therefore not a reason for the MWC to accept lower exit or poaching fees in a settlement between the conferences. The only inducement for the MWC to settle the current lawsuits is to avoid the costs and risks associated with continuing the litigation.

I’m not going to predict how Sac State would perform in football if invited to join the Pac… but one thing for sure is that it would set up a great annual rivalry game against UC Davis once the latter moves up to FBS. Pac versus MWC for bragging rights in Sacramento would sell some tickets. Of course New Mexico State versus New Mexico is a rivalry game that sells too. Same with New Mexico State versus UTEP. Those series go all the way back to the 1930s (90 head-to-head meetings and 84 head-to-head meetings respectively).

Hawaii to the ACC! I’m not serious, but that would be hilarious.

If that’s the strategy we would have seen Texas State added as a full share member by now. I think what’s actually been driving the process and oucomes all along has been leverage, which is always the case in negotiations. Initially the Pac targeted adding four MWC schools and three AAC schools at full shares. The Pac landed the desired four from the MWC, but the AAC targets insisted on being shown the money before signing on. That made it essential to accelerate progress in discussions with potential media partners, but that in turn required keeping some expansion momentum going (forecasting payout numbers was dependent on the media partners knowing what schools would comprise the core of the future conference). So the plan was revised to take five from the MWC and two from the AAC. But then the Pac struck out on UNLV (we all know the reasons, whether or not we agree with UNLV’s decision). At that point the Pac turned to USU and tried to lowball the Aggies. However USU understood that it had leverage because the Pac was becoming a little desperate to preserve the aforementioned expansion momentum. As it turned out, USU’s leverage wasn’t strong enough to force the Pac to cover a portion of USU’s MWC exit fees, but it was sufficient to induce the Pac to give USU a full share of conference distributions. Now here we are months later and the Pac is trying to lowball Texas State. It would seem that Texas State’s negotiating leverage is even greater than USU’s was, because adding more MWC or AAC schools is now completely off the table and the PAC is desperate to land an eighth FBS full member. However the Pac has a hole card in New Mexico State. Morever the media payout is now close to being finalized, and won’t be affected by whether the Pac adds Texas State or New Mexico State. The poker game is almost over, and I think the outcome of the final hand will be determined by whether Texas State’s negotiating leverage is sufficiently boosted by the Pac’s aversion to ridicule. Will the Pac give Texas State the full share it wants, or will the Pac settle for New Mexico State at the price of its original “best of the rest” vision being viewed as such a failure that it couldn’t even establish a foothold in Texas? We’ll know soon.

I'm old, LOL. In the late '80s I worked in Washington D.C. when Georgetown basketball was huge. Those were the years Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, and Dikembe Mutombo were stars. Everyone in town watched Big Monday telecasts featuring the Hoyas and other Big East teams. I admit that I rarely stayed up late enough to watch the Big West games, but I knew they were part of the package and of course everyone was familiar with Tark and the Runnin' Rebels. UCSB also had some very good teams during that period.

I think it’s pretty clear that UCD got the nod because it sponsors football and is on a trajectory to be able to move up from FCS to FBS in the relatively near future. I have no argument with that logic.

Neither of those TV markets is anywhere close in size to the greater Los Angeles market. If TV market matters then the top priority for the MWC should be to add at least one if not two schools in or near Los Angeles. UCI ticks that box. Morever Seattle and Denver have minuscule fan support. Attendance at their men’s basketball games in 2024-25 was 949 and 782 respectively. UCI averaged 2,640. And while Seattle at least had a competitive pulse with a NET ranking of #155, Denver was an absolute NET anchor at #300. UCI finished the season at #62 in the NET ranking.

Membership in the Big West is great for saving on travel, but the members earn virtually zero revenue from the conference and get very limited media exposure. In the MWC they would receive a conference payout that would probably be large enough to cover their increased travel expense, plus they would be on national TV more often in all sports, and would probably sell quite a few more tickets to home games in the revenue sports. Inertia is a tough thing to overcome and it may be enough to dissuade any other Big West school from joining UC Davis in jumping to the MWC. But if any of them have ambitions to increase their national sports media profile and probably net a little more cash as part of the deal, I think they would be tempted to go. Both UCSB and UCI could have such ambitions, as both were members of the Big West back in its glory years when it was featured in Big Monday telecasts and UNLV and San Jose State (along with Fresno State, Utah State, and New Mexico State) were conference mates.

I put about as much stock in what Monty reports as I do in what Wilner and Canzano report. That is, not much. All of them have the same primary objective which is to spout whatever opinions and predictions generate the most clicks, views, and subscriptions. Reporting facts that have been vetted with multiple credible sources is a much lower priority.

If I had a vote those would be my choices.

Indeed. In particular, quoting Canzano at this point borders on journalistic malpractice, given that he’s a biased source and most of what he’s been spouting lately is clearly personal opinion. I still haven’t heard him acknowledge in any of his interviews that the MWC has a signed in-force GOR agreement with all seven member schools the Pac hasn’t invited. At most he admits there are “complications” with the Pac being able to secure UNLV, and in his most recent comments he’s actually suggested that one of the outcomes of the mediation now underway between the conferences could be an agreement to let UNLV jump. I can’t imagine that topic even making it onto the agenda for discussion.

I've been predicting for weeks that #8 will be Texas State and that view hasn't wavered. It's just taking some time for the parties to negotiate how large Texas State's share of media rights money will be. No doubt the Pac tried to get away with offering a partial share and Texas State is smart enough to realize it has sufficient leverage to push for a full share. They'll probably compromise with Texas State getting less than a full share but the amount increasing to a full share in three years or so. Then the announcement will be made and all this speculation can end.

Yep, not only does everything cost more here, it takes longer to get anything done too. That’s especially true of public sector projects, where there are usually too many cooks in the kitchen to start with, and the unions make sure that both the size and duration of the labor investment to complete any job is maximized. Despite having grown up with the inefficiency and having dealt with it for most of my professional life, it still drives me nuts.