At the start of Mountain West Media Days in Las Vegas, conference commissioner Gloria Nevarez addressed the media and spoke about the state and future of the conference along with the successes and challenges facing the Mountain West. And while much of the talk in these speeches is fluff, filled with buzzwords and couched in PR terminology, there were some notables from the roughly 15 minutes of Nevarez’s address plus around 10 minutes of questions she fielded form the assembled media.
Like any commissioner, Nevarez sought to project an air of stability and paint an image of an upward trajectory for the Mountain West, especially in football, stating that the conference has “increased revenue, increased our national media exposure” and claiming “record-breaking gains in attendance and viewership” of the championship game. The 2023 title bout did indeed have the highest attendance of a title game since the first one was held in 2013, with 31,473 present at Allegiant Stadium for Boise State’s victory over UNLV.
Whether attendance is truly on the up-and-up for title games is something that can’t be definitely stated right now. Aside from the first-ever MW title game, which also topped the 31k mark, attendance for these games has almost unwaveringly hovered around 24,000 with a dip in 2020 and 2021 (for mostly COVID-related reasons). In 2022 attendance made it right back to its usual with 24,037 present for that year’s matchup.
As for TV viewership, on its face last year’s title game did not meet the upward trajectory Nevarez implied. On Fox, the network that has hosted the championship game since 2020, TV ratings were reported at 1.26 million viewers which was down from the 1.94 million from the 2022 title game and also below the 2020 ratings of 1.42 million. It’s not a “record-breaking gain” as the commissioner claims, but the title game has taken an overall step forward in ratings in the past four seasons. Since shifting from ESPN, the average viewership has gone from 657,000 (from 2015 to 2019) to 1.359 million (2020 to present).
In addition to trying to use attendance and TV ratings to project confidence, Nevarez cited the league’s record against power conference teams, or Autonomous Four (A4) to use the term she went with. Nevarez pointed out the 24 wins by Mountain West teams over what used to be known as P5 teams, the most of any peer conference, presumably referencing fellow Group of Five conferences: Sun Belt, AAC, MAC and Conference USA.
Nevarez also touted this year’s total number of games scheduled against A4 teams which she quoted at 35, though it’s inflated by the inclusion of Washington State and Oregon State — the remnants of the Pac-12 — who play a combined 15 games against Mountain West teams through a scheduling agreement. The next-closest conference in non-conference A4 matchups as Nevarez pointed out is the MAC, which has 23. But, if you exclude WSU and OSU the Mountain West would be just behind at 20, though still ahead of AAC (15), CUSA (10) and Sun Belt (16).
“If you look at our schedules they are vastly more competitive to our peers. And we expect this will be noted by the selection committee,” Nevarez said. “Our coaches have consistently scheduled aggressively to position themselves for the CFB Playoff.”
The notion of qualifying for the playoff was what got Nevarez on the topic of wins over and upcoming games scheduled against power conference teams to begin with. It all works toward what she says is the conference’s aim: “to be a top five FBS conference.” And getting to the playoff is a big part of that.
“The five top conference champions get automatic qualification and seven are chosen at large,” Nevarez said. “Our goal is to annually qualify for that (automatic qualification) as well as be considered for at-large opportunities.”
During the Q&A portion of her comments, a couple members of the media asked Nevarez about being competitive in the playoff, not just making it to the 12-team field. Nevarez replied, “I think we’re positioned to do that now.”
Another media member asked Nevarez if, with the goal of getting to the playoffs, whether the lack of Mountain West teams in New Year’s Six bowl games (which are effectively now the playoff games) was a concern, Nevarez fell back on one of her previous statements in saying the conference “is on an upward trajectory,” somewhat dodging the question.
With the goals of the Mountain West stated and a pumped-up, though not necessarily untrue, image of its current state provided, Nevarez went on to address the issues the conference will face. These are numerous and they are staring down not only the Mountain West but also the rest of college sports. Conference realignment, revenue sharing, broadcasting rights, playoff expansion, NIL and the transfer portal are all major areas of focus of those in charge of the future of college athletics.
“Certainly, transformation has has hit us pretty big in the last couple of years,” Nevarez said. “And more is on its way. No doubt.”
Nevarez went through each of these issues and addressed them with varying degrees of detail, though it started by hearkening back to the Mountain West Strategic Plan announced back in January. The public-facing aspect of this plan amounted to essentially 14 PowerPoint slides that spoke broadly of five strategic priorities. And while Nevarez didn’t go into any more specific details about the plan in her speech, she wanted to ensure it’s a serious initiative that is “regularly monitored by our board of directors and our memberships.”
“It’s not a piece of paper collecting dust on a shelf,” Nevarez said. “We’ve created 83 deliverables towards that plan and our strategic priorities for 27 pages of excel spreadsheet wonderfulness. Forty-six are currently in progress, 20 have been completed and we look forward to bringing that over four years, completing all 83.”
Speaking more broadly about taking on challenges, Nevarez revealed the conference has employed the services of Brian David Johnson to do what she called “threat-casting.” Johnson is, by his own online description, a “futurist” who works with business to “chart out possible futures and what they need to do to get there” per his LinkedIn page.
It’s a service the Mountain West could certainly use and Nevarez indicated Johnson has been hard at work to help the conference navigate the current landscape of collegiate athletics.
“(Johnson) worked with us to model all the different futures in and around the college athletic space,” Nevarez said. “He’s providing us signals and way-finders so that we have early detection for the more dire outcomes and the report gives us tools to proactively think about and prepare the Mountain West today for some of those outcomes should they come to fruition in the near future. And this is how we plan to survive and thrive in the myriad of potential outcomes that are coming our way.”
One of the most pressing issues is the upcoming settlement of the House vs NCAA lawsuit, a settlement that appears to be leading toward the establishment of revenue sharing between schools and athletes among many other things that will begin to shape college sports into a more professional-style league.
Nevarez didn’t provide any specific insight as to what the Mountain West plans to do, partly because answers are hard to come by for anyone right now. But she offered support for the settlement.
“We support the settling of the case. We support investing more in our student-athletes,” Nevarez said. “We’ve been working since February when the CFP negotiations started to try and position and get as much information as we can for our membership on these developments. Our schools are committed to investing in student-athletes. Right now there are so many questions about the house settlement, the tactical operational implementation of revenue distribution and roster caps. Our role is to continue to find answers and advocate on behalf of the Mountain West and help out institutions make informed decisions.”
In the wake of the House settlement, an ongoing worry for programs in the G5 conferences is the financial gap between the power conferences and the rest. And Nevarez didn’t dance around this reality, instead speaking about it outright and saying the conference is working on being smart with its money to ensure they stay competitive.
“There’s a gap between the A4 and the rest. And that gap’s getting bigger,” Nevarez said. “We are committed to being competitive while staying true to our core mission and values. As a league, we are prioritizing informed decision-making based on data about athletic spending compared to our competitors. And we’ve been providing that information to our institutions for the last year and a half.”
Part of the gap between the haves and have-nots is talent, and the transfer portal is poised to potentially worsen that the longer it remains in its unregulated state. It creates a larger issue for the Mountain West as it tries to prevent top-tier talent from leaving en masse to power conference teams. Nevarez acknowledged this reality, noting that 41 players left MW schools to go to A4 teams, but tried to offset that by saying 83 players are coming to the Mountain West from A4 teams. That comparison is a stretch given the players moving up are either all-conference or likely future all-conference players and the ones coming in are almost exclusively those that did not see significant time or accolades at higher levels of college football. But to Nevarez’s point, five players on last year’s First Team All-MW offensive and defensive squads — and three on this year’s preseason All-MW teams — were players who transferred from P5 teams and have clearly found new life in the Mountain West.
Conference realignment, for now, is a largely settled affair, with the next wave of movement likely a few years away (at least the movement involving the bigger conferences). The Mountain West still has possible expansion right on its doorstep with Washington State and Oregon State being left out to dry as the remaining schools in a dying Pac-12. The Mountain West is in a working relationship with these two schools and that relationship is, so far, positive, with Nevarez saying that re-upping the scheduling agreement is likely and that the two sides are hoping to have an extension to the deal drawn up and agreed to prior to the start of the 2024 season. Beyond that, Nevarez didn’t elaborate.
“For the time being we’re really excited about playing them,” Nevarez said. “I think they’ve really added a pump to our football strength of schedule and we look forward to meeting them on the gridiron this year.”
One specific worry about OSU and WSU is the possibility of the two trying to carve up the Mountain West in a bid to restore the Pac-12 to something of its former self. Nevarez was asked specifically about such a possibility, and about “walking the line” between working with the two schools and not letting them stab the Mountain West in the back. In answering, she did her best not to vilify Oregon State and Washington State.
“I’ve always said it’s not our job to mount a campaign against schools doing what’s best for an individual school,” Nevarez said. “We are tasked with a fiduciary responsibility to the Mountain West and doing what’s in the best interest of the league. And as you know, the scheduling agreement has some protections built in which at the time seemed to make a lot of sense. But at any time, walking the line sounds like doing what’s best for the Mountain West going forward and maintaining our FBS standing, our CFP access and our NCAA membership at the highest level.”
