The cases will eventually settle. Either after the ruling on the Motions to Dismiss or after summary judgment rulings. These cases, when the relatively weak anti-trust arguments are dispensed with, comes down to pretty straight forward contract breach and remedy questions.Part of me is worried that they will pull a CSU/UNC replay official move...where everything we can see tells us one thing but the ruling appears to be based on something else.
PAC has a great legal argument. The law does not recognize penalties for contract breach. Liquidated damage clauses have to be a reasonable forecast of actual damages to be enforceable. I have yet to see a cogent argument as to why the poaching penalties and exit fees are not payments for the identical harm. Little chance do I see the damage clauses being enforced by a court in their entireties given this set of facts - - my 2 cents based on litigating similar cases.
The legal question posed is whether the losses can be quantified to reasonably meet or exceed the combination of exit fees and poaching penalties. That’s a pretty big number. The MWC’s best argument (in my mind) is that the parties’ breach made the incentive payments to Air Force and UNLV critical in order to figure in those bonus payments as part of the MWC loss calculation and that those losses were not foreseeable at the time the exit fees were created but became foreseeable when the poaching penalty provisions were crafted.Let's assume the tv numbers being floated are true then we are receiving 3-4 mill/team/year for poaching. We lose likely revenue from playoff and ncaa tourney.
I'm sure the losses could be quantified and likely exceed poaching penalties.
The precedence on exit penalties is pretty solid. I'm betting the defectors are on the hook for most of the 85 mill.The legal question posed is whether the losses can be quantified to reasonably meet or exceed the combination of exit fees and poaching penalties. That’s a pretty big number. The MWC’s best argument (in my mind) is that the parties’ breach made the incentive payments to Air Force and UNLV critical in order to figure in those bonus payments as part of the MWC loss calculation and that those losses were not foreseeable at the time the exit fees were created but became foreseeable when the poaching penalty provisions were crafted.
It is black letter law that you cannot collect full damages from separate sources for the same harm to receive a windfall just because multiple parties might be liable. MWC has to basically prove 2 things: (1) that the combination of exit fees and poaching penalties is a reasonable estimate of actual harm; and (2) that there was some intervening event or change of circumstances which would justify the MWC to seek additional damages from a separate source for a harm that was presumably figured into the original exit fees determination (my suggestion is that the MWC ceasing to exist only became foreseeable after the PAC blew up and after the exit fees were already in place and then the need for additional penalties to mitigate this additional risk/harm).The precedence on exit penalties is pretty solid. I'm betting the defectors are on the hook for most of the 85 mill.
I think you're right that the court might view the poaching penalty as double dipping a bit too much. I'm thinking MWC gets most if not all the exit penalties and the pac poaching is around 20 to 30 mill.
It is black letter law that you cannot collect full damages from separate sources for the same harm to receive a windfall just because multiple parties might be liable. MWC has to basically prove 2 things: (1) that the combination of exit fees and poaching penalties is a reasonable estimate of actual harm; and (2) that there was some intervening event or change of circumstances which would justify the MWC to seek additional damages from a separate source for a harm that was presumably figured into the original exit fees determination (my suggestion is that the MWC ceasing to exist only became foreseeable after the PAC blew up and after the exit fees were already in place and then the need for additional penalties to mitigate this additional risk/harm).
I think the schedule shuffling cost is mostly a red herring, relative peanuts and I doubt the MWC would focus on that with attempts to recover the poaching penalties. As you indicate, the MWC was paid to play those games.I'm guessing that's exactly what they argued and that exit penalties protect against an industry standard of losing a team or a few teams. When salvaging a conference already on a shoestring budget due to extreme poaching, the cost is higher.
I think that's actually a pretty solid argument. 55 mill higher? We'll see.
A couple other thoughts. There was a clause that the pac12 and mwc would negotiate in good faith for all mwc teams to enter the pac with no poaching or exit penalties. The pac had a contractual way out of poaching fees.
What's the scheduling shuffling cost? I know they paid 14 mill or something but we also gave them what, 16 games?
