One would think they would have had to pay some earnest money. Maybe 20% down or they were on a layaway plan? 
Would have been dumb of the WCC if they didn’t require some payment.
The WCC files suit against GCU for breach of contract.
The sniping via press statements is pretty hilarious. The WCC (a bit belatedly) tosses out that GCU is a weird for-profit college and maybe was a bad addition to begin with:
And then GCU gets defensive about its totally normal and very legit and definitely separate “relationship” between the for-profit, publicly-traded education provider and the non-profit university…which both have the same man as president/CEO:
Get your popcorn out.
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It is a pretty funny pissing match. I thought GCUs backhanded comment about the WCC taking out the loss of BYU and Gonzaga on GCU was a chuckle.
I had assumed that GCU had paid a deposit. It clearly knows it is not getting that money back. WCC will get something more than zero of the rest of the money it is owed, but certainly no where near the whole bucket.
Yeah, without seeing the contract, I’m guessing that GCU will say alternatively that they never joined the conference and that any additional money is an unenforceable penalty clause. I think the first argument is pretty specious. They announced that they were joining and paid the initial deposits for their negotiated entrance fee. The second argument will depend on a choice of law clause in the contract. California is pretty friendly to liquidated damages clauses, assuming the contract is interpreted according to CA law.
But in the end, you’re right. They’ll settle this for some amount of money that’s short of the full entrance and withdrawal fee. All that’s really up in the air is which 40-yard line the ball lands closer to. I think the WCC probably has the pole position, but this gets resolved pretty quickly from here.
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This year’s WCC is a lot of fun. But when OSU, Wazzu & Gonzaga leave, the conference is going to be bad.
I wonder if there is any move for USF, SCU, SMC. SMC won’t like being lumped into this, but their hope for a P12 bid is comical. 0/10 on facilities and they don’t have the $$ to play.
Would it be worth it for the three of us to bounce to the MW and join Nevada, NM, GCU? That’s a solid basketball conference.
I have always been about tradition and keeping the WCC together but that’s out the window now… it’s about survival.
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I actually think the sit-and-wait model is most prudent here, as well as quite likely the only option SCU really has.
The MWC and the new Pac-12 are already suing each other over poaching. The MWC is coming for basically everything that’s left in the old Pac-12 war chest: $55 million for poaching. Does the MWC get all that? Almost certainly not. But even if they get $10-20 million in a settlement, that’s a lot of USC, UCLA, and Oregon’s money that will be burned up. There will probably be very little left come 2027, so the conference will have to make its own way.
The new Pac-12 commish said recently that the preliminary media offers for the Pac-12 were “overwhelming.” If they were actually overwhelming, she would give a range of the offers that had been received to start a bidding war. What she likely means is that the Pac-12 is realizing behind the scenes that Wazzu and Oregon State do not carry the Pac prestige and the media rights package is probably worth a bit more than the current Mountain West (i.e. $3-5 million per school).
Meanwhile, the MWC is laying down with GCU and bringing in UC Davis. So they aren’t operating from a place of strength.
In the end, I think stability will be the coin of the realm as it has been through all of the realignment era. The MWC and new “Pac-12” are basically clones of the same middling conference trying to compete in the same markets for dollars that are already promised to the big boys. The Pac-12 is worth more, certainly, but even if the Pac gets twice as much money as the MWC, it’ll still be only getting about 15% of what the Big-10 schools get. All while having no conference identity or stability with every member salivating for the Big-12 invitation. Good luck, Gonzaga!
For the WCC, I think the best approach is to hunker down and continue to work on the internal product. If desperate moves are needed, then I think you open a conversation with the A-10 about a scheduling alliance or even some sort of consolidation. Unless SCU can become a unicorn like Gonzaga, I don’t think there’s much hope or point in chasing football money. You have to find the best basketball-centric route available.
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I talked to a good friend yesterday who has been very knowledgeable over the years of the inner workings of the West Coast conferences and schools. He said that there is rumblings of St. Mary’s being on suspect footing financially as an institution and its future is murky. As a small, regional and remote school with (depending on your POV) stronger local competitors, is its fate the same as many similar schools across the US (especially liberal arts schools without a specialty)? Curious if anyone has heard anything similar and if its success on the court hasn’t reaped the “ESPN ticker” benefits that Gonzaga has earned.
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Here’s an article just today about SSU in the North Bay shutting down its entire intercollegiate athletics program due to budget shortfall from a 30+% drop in enrollment. They are also terminating many majors, minors, and master-level programs.
The enrollment cliff has been a topic for at least a decade. Basically, birth rates collapsed in the early-2000s and haven’t rebounded. A lot of these institutions, including Santa Clara, expanded rapidly in the 70s and 80s to make way for the Baby Boomers. They were able to maintain enrollment levels through the 2000s with Millennials. But there are way fewer Gen Zers and following groups than Boomers, Xers, and Millennials.
Something had to give–the university system is overbuilt for the student-age population.
For SMC, I don’t think the enrollment cliff is existential, but it probably will put the school on its heels. The Christian Brothers don’t have the same economies of scale that the Jesuits do or, frankly, living members of the order. And, even for Gonzaga, basketball doesn’t pay the bills. Students paying tuition pay the bills (plus government grants, etc.) SMC isn’t going the way of Notre Dame de Namur, Holy Names, and, potentially, Dominican U. But as a small college with less scale, somewhat less reputational renown, only a handful of grad programs, and a smaller religious order backing it, SMC may have to make hard choices before Gonzaga, SCU, LMU, etc.
Hard choices may come for those schools as well, but they are somewhat more insulated for now.
Good point there…The drop in GenZ following the early-2000s economic crashes is no small thing. Local Catholic grade schools and high schools have been enduring that and will have to adjust or (more likely on the grade school side) close.
There is also less of a need for college than in decades past. In this day and age, companies are looking to hire skills, not diplomas. Given the outrageous cost of college today, I don’t blame young folks for eschewing university education. Who wants to graduate with $200K in student debt?
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I have heard the same thing. It’s very dicey. I know people who work at the school and have confirmed similar things, which is why I always kind of chuckle when those @ SMC think they are going the P12 route. The $$ is not there.
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It’s unfortunate, but true. The same can be said for other WCC institutions… Pepperdine, Portland, and UOP. Although they are in a stronger position, it’s not like LMU, USF and USD aren’t feeling a huge financial burden too.
5 years from now it’s likely that more than 1 current WCC member has shuttered their doors. Whether any of the remaining teams continue with sports beyond that is up in the air.
Given the impending loss of Gonzaga and the two former P12 schools after next season, I’d consider making immediate invitations to UC Irvine and UC San Diego out of the Big West. Both are excellent academic institutions and have been good men’s basketball competitors. UC Irvine also has a pretty good women’s soccer program for the Broncos to match up with.
There’s always a risk that you bring in a team when they’re hot and then they immediately fall off a cliff (like DePaul in the Big East), but Irvine has been good for a decade, and UC San Diego made the investment to climb from D2 to D1 and is now a top-50 program speaking to a pretty significant investment there.
Now that we’ve broken the seal on public institutions being in the WCC, I think those two make much more sense and have much higher upside than Cal Baptist or Denver. GCU, we barely knew ye (but please pay your exit fees, thx)
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And just like that: Cal Baptist likely to the Big West, per reports. Gives some potential for movement out of the Big West, maybe.
FWIW, at the chalk talk before the Gonzaga game the new AD, Heather Owen, was asked about the WCC potentially expanding. She didn’t anticipate the WCC adding any teams in the next few years. She predicted a bit of stability and not many teams moving until the 2030’s when the SEC, Big 10, Big 12 and ACC all have tv rights coming up. That’s when the football super conference is most likely to take shape. She said her role as AD of a basketball school is to make sure the team is in a position to be attractive for a conference looking to add a basketball only school.
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Here’s a pretty good interview with WCC Commish Stu Jackson. Jackson seems to want to be the standard bearer for mid-major conferences in the new era, and I like his candor and fight overall.
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SMC is going no where
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https://x.com/jonrothstein/status/1896640427014664401?s=46&t=lctRIohfRYy92NFxFgqpbg
Coach Bennet seems to be under the impression that they’ll have to schedule GU.
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If anyone would have them, trust me, SMC would be gone in an instant
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