Mountain West reportedly not keen on a lawsuit, will capitulate

A funny thing happened when the Mountain West announced their more lucrative TV deal a few weeks back. Commish Craig “Hair” Thompson decided to run his mouth and announce that the six-year deal would be the last time the league would negotiate Boise State’s TV rights separately (Boise State gets an extra $1.8M more than the rest of the conference as terms of the MWC luring us back from the Big East dalliance). Boise State’s response to this revelation can be expressed thusly:

The Broncos, never ones to take slights lying down, decided to remain standing for this one as well and filed a legal complaint contending that Craig Thompson effectively announced his intentions to breach a written (mostly typed) contract. You see, Boise State’s law-talkin’ guys wisely (conference mates feel sneakily) arranged that that extra dough had no expiration date, meaning that new TV deal or no, the Broncos get a bigger piece of the pie in perpetuity as long as they stay in the conference.

This does not make the ribosomes (conference mates) happy, but a deal is a deal and a lawsuit probably would not have gone the MWC’s way. In fact, a lawsuit had the potential to make the TV money distribution even less equitable because the Broncos contended that the conference didn’t really consult them much before jumping into bed with Fox Sports and CBS. Also, the MWC probably wasn’t super eager to force out their biggest brand (I know you were all thinking San José State, but no...actually it’s us). So now, as Mark Zeigler reports...the MWC is in full-on capitulation mode and in return, the Broncos will forget this whole ugly incident ever happened...for now.

It seems to me the loudest opponents of Boise’s deal are San Diego State fans, who were going to be a travel partner in the Big East and besides the Broncos have been the most consistent team in the conference since “the return”. This is understandable, but we made a deal and they didn’t...and also, we had the cachet to make the deal when we made it and it’s arguable if they did. Furthermore, if you are an opponent of any one team getting special (read: different) treatment, then you probably shouldn’t have clapped along when the conference told the Broncos they couldn’t wear blue uniforms at home. There’s gotta be a tiny violin around here somewhere...