Boise State has no choice and takes what the Mountain West gives them
Maybe the Mountain West will keep the same deal in place but phase it out or allow some sort of bump for Boise State to stay with the Mountain West as to not create a non-messy exit for its non-revenue sports.
The Mountain West presidents and athletic directors don’t like that Boise State has the deal they currently have and maybe a phase-out could be done or maybe have some benchmark that Boise State needs to achieve to keep their deal.
That still may not sit well with the rest of the league but at least the Broncos side deal would have to be earned.
Go independent?
This provides the same issue of finding a spot for its non-revenue sports but also filling out a 12 game football schedule would be tough. Boise State could play other independents like BYU, New Mexico State, UMass, UConn and Liberty for half of its slate.
The rest would be somewhat tough as the Mountain West teams likely would not really want to play the Broncos. Plus, with leagues like the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 playing nine conference games it would make landing some big time games against those leagues a bit tough.
It would take years to get a schedule that everyone likes, plus there is the money. Would ESPN or any other network pay Boise State more than $5 million for all of its home games?
New Conference?
This seems to be the least likely because there is no more WAC that plays football. The best option would be a league with Boise State, BYU and six other Mountain West teams to form a league? That could make scheduling tough with only seven league games and would money be worth it for the entire league.
Maybe they grab a few Texas-playing schools to get a bigger foot-print but this seems unlikely to create a new league.
What will happen?
It is too early to tell but one thing that seems clear is that Craig Thompson openly saying that Boise State provides the league a boost of revenue gives the Broncos an edge in negotiating a favored deal for them with that admission.
Gut guess right now is that Boise State will have some favored deal but remain in the league.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1360]
[protected-iframe id=”c0286d6e1aad69344270e42782a7311d-137729785-123448869″ info=”https://anchor.fm/mwwire/embed” width=”400px” height=”102px” frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”]