Mountain West Leaders Address NIL Chaos, Realignment, Media Rights At 2025 Media Days

Between the house settlement for NIL deals, realignment, and negotiating a new media deal, things have been crazy in the Mountain West Conference. Because it's the offseason, we haven't as much from the top executives from the conference or the schools as we usually would if this were happening at a busier time for college sports. However, Mountain West Media Days took place this week, and we got a lot more answers to our questions, or at least some clarifications and updates.

Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez addressed her optimism surrounding the NCAA coming up with a stable system for NIL deals:

“It’s been fast and furious,” Nevarez said. “Certainly I agree that the House settlement is a good set of parameters, but it’s going to be a bumpy road. We’ve only lived in it for a few weeks and we’re already hearing stories about tampering and deals not being approved. There is a growth period, but I’m optimistic this sets us up to have a more stable environment than the wild, wild west we’ve been living in.... I don’t even know what’s next. But I do think if we can hit the implementation (of the clearinghouse) NIL Go and revenue sharing and all the parameters created by the House settlement in even stride and get comfortable there, I think we have a good shot of keeping college athletics going.”

UNLV Rebels athletic director Erick Harper spoke about how everyone has to be flexible when it comes to the ever changing nature of college football right now:

“The important part is when you look at the landscape of college athletics right now is that you have to have a large level of flexibility and be able to understand that this is fluid,” Harper said. “If you’re cooking one way today, you might be cooking another way tomorrow. But you’re trying to arrive at the same conclusion at the end of the day and that’s to take care of the student athletes.”