Finance

BSU Files Lawsuit against Old Big East over Disputed Exit Fee

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Boise State University has filed a lawsuit in the 4th District Court urging the court to declare that it does not owe $5 million for cancelling its entry into the Big East Conference, last year.

The university filed the lawsuit after a representative of the newly named American Athletic Conference said they intended to sue the University for Cancellation Penalty after it pulled off its proposed entry into the Big East Conference.

Boise State signed an agreement in December 2011 to join the Big East in July 2013 for football. However, the university said that the conference lost three-quarters of its membership over the next year, failed to add more football schools west of the Mississippi and lost its guaranteed spot in Bowl Championship Series bowls.

As a result, they decided to stay in the Mountain West Conference for all sports.

"Boise State entered into that agreement in good faith and with a great degree of optimism, but the conference we agreed to join simply no longer exists," University president Bob Kustra told ESPN.

In their defence, that Big East officials said that the university will still have to pay the cancellation fee mentioned in the contract after it initially committed to join.

According to reports, the Big East Conference will become the American Athletic Conference this summer.

The football schools of the former Big East Conference will be now be part of the American Athletic Conference after the they agreed to give away the Big East name to the 'Catholic 7' - DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's and Villanova, which broke away from the Big East to form a non-football league.

As a result, the Big East will now be a basketball-centric conference along with Xavier, Butler and Creighton.

On the other hand, the American Athletic Conference (AAC) will comprise of 10 members in its first season: Rutgers, Louisville, Connecticut, South Florida, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Memphis, Houston, SMU and Temple.

Rutgers and Louisville will eventually leave the conference after 2013 and are set to be replaced by Tulane, East Carolina and Tulsa, next year.

In other reports, Navy is also scheduled to join, 2015 for football only.

By 2014, South Florida, UConn, Temple and Cincinnati will be the only schools in the AAC to have  once belonged to Big East.

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