Expand / Collapse search
Watch TV
Menu

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2024 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

Sports

Report: West Virginia, Big East to settle lawsuit

By Sports Network
Published | Updated

Charleston, WV – West Virginia and the Big East have reportedly agreed to end their legal issues in a move that will enable the university to leave the conference and join the Big 12 in July.

According to the Charleston Daily Mail, an official announcement could come as early as Friday.

The paper indicated that the Big East will receive about $20 million in exchange for allowing West Virginia to leave without giving 27 months notice, as is required in the league's by-laws. West Virginia, according to the report, will pay $11 million with the Big 12 set to complete the financial transaction.

West Virginia announced its decision to defect from the Big East and join the Big 12 in October, making the move about a month after both Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced its departures to the ACC. The Big East had informed both Syracuse and Pittsburgh that it would enforce the 27-month notice period, and now both of those schools could also try to leave sooner.

It could still be a difficult process, though, as the new members the Big East has recruited are not scheduled to join the league until 2013. If all three schools were to leave for the 2012-13 academic year, only five members would remain for the football season.

West Virginia, in filing a lawsuit against the Big East, had argued that it wanted to leave immediately because no such 27-month period of notification was needed for TCU, which had agreed to join the Big East for the start of the 2012-13 year and instead decided to join the Big 12.

The Big East said the 27-month rule did not apply to TCU because it had not yet participated in conference play.

After Syracuse and Pittsburgh are allowed to leave, the Big East will be left with Rutgers, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville and South Florida from its current football lineup. The new members slated to join the league -- at different intervals -- are Memphis, which announced its move earlier this week, Central Florida, SMU and Houston as full members and Boise State, San Diego State and Navy for football only.