RENO - The Nevada Wolf Pack will remain a member of the Western Athletic Conference through the 2011-12 season.
WAC commissioner Karl Benson announced Thursday that Nevada and Fresno State, which both announced in August that they accepted an invitation to join the Mountain West Conference, will pay a $900,000 exit fee and remain in the WAC in all sports through June 30, 2012.
"We are very pleased to have worked out this settlement which will support a graceful transition," Wolf Pack athletic director Cary Groth said in a statement. "(Thursday's) announcement removes uncertainty and allows the WAC, the Mountain West and our program to move forward."
The WAC filed a complaint on Sept. 9 seeking a $5 million payment from both Fresno and Nevada if the two schools were to leave the conference after the current 2010-11 athletic season. The $5 million payment was based on WAC bylaws, which required any member school to remain in the conference for five years if it did not notify the conference it was leaving by July 1, 2010.
"That figure ($900,000) is considerably less than what we believe the WAC is entitled to but our six remaining members felt it was more important to determine the departure date so we could move forward with the matter of building the WAC instead of being tied up in court over the next several months," Benson said.
Benson said it was crucial for the WAC that Fresno State and Nevada remain members through the 2011-12 season. The current nine-team WAC will be eight teams after this season when Boise State leaves to join the Mountain West Conference.
"An earlier departure would have caused our six remaining members severe financial hardship," he said, citing decreased revenue from its current ESPN television contract and from the WAC's postseason basketball tournament had Nevada and Fresno left after the 2010-11 season.
Nevada and Fresno will pay the $900,000 in five equal installments of $180,000 each during the next five years starting on Aug. 1. Nevada president Milt Glick said the Wolf Pack will pay the first installment from its end-of-year revenue from the WAC this year.
"We believe that new revenues which will result from the move to the Mountain West will offset the departure fee," Glick said in a statement.
Benson said the WAC agreed to the reduced payment (from $5 million to $900,000) to insure that the conference remained financially sound and athletically competitive through the 2011-12 season.
"It was critical to the WAC that we continue to be an eight-team league in (2011-2012)," Benson said. "That was something we could not afford to move off of. That led to the reduced financial settlement."
Boise State announced it was leaving the WAC in June and is not paying an exit fee. Benson, though, did say that Boise State will forfeit approximately $750,000 in end-of-year revenue from the WAC this year. Nevada and Fresno also will forfeit its end-of-year revenue from the WAC after the 2011-12 season.
Benson, though, explained that college bowl game and NCAA basketball tournament revenue are not part of the conference's end-of-year distribution to member schools and will still be paid to Boise, Fresno and Nevada in the years they remain in the conference.
"That revenue is separate from the pool of money divided equally," Benson said.
The WAC will be an eight-team league in 2011-12 with Nevada, Fresno State, New Mexico State, Louisiana Tech, Hawaii, San Jose State, Idaho and Utah State.
The Mountain West, which loses BYU and Utah after the current season, will also be an eight-team league in 2011-12 with Boise State, Air Force, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, TCU, UNLV and Wyoming. BYU will be independent in football and join the West Coast Conference for all other sports while Utah is joining the Pac-10 Conference in all sports.
Nevada and Fresno State will make the MWC a 10-team league starting in the 2012-13 season.
"We look forward to joining the Mountain West Conference," Glick said. "We continue to believe this is a positive move and in the best interests of our intercollegiate athletics program."
Benson said the WAC will announce within the next 30 days that it also will have at least eight football-playing members for the start of the 2012-13 season. The commissioner said that the new schools will come from a pool of schools that includes Montana, Texas State, Texas-San Antonio, Seattle and Denver.
"No other schools are under consideration," Benson said.
Two of the new schools will come from a group that includes Montana, Texas State and Texas-San Antonio since Seattle and Denver do not play football. Montana also must decide to move from the Football Championship Sub-Division (Division I-AA) to the WAC's Football Bowl Sub-Division (I-A).
"We look forward to putting this behind us and building the WAC for the future," Benson said.