Mountain West will not be taken advantage of by Boise State

Some move just slips through the cracks like this piece of news, which reports that the Mountain West will not provide Boise State any preferential treatment to stay in the Mountain West. It was recently reported that Boise State was attempting to keep home television rights from either the Mountain West or Big East, and increase their yearly revenue.

While Mountain West officials are saying that they are not going to give Boise State special treatment, but this past May the Mountain West offered unequal revenue for Boise State to stay.

Boise State hoping to retain their home television rights was a long shot, and that was confirmed by a recent CBS Sports article. It is not a shock that the Mountain West would not succumb to Boise State's request, but no one can faul them for trying to get as much money as possible.

Mountain West deputy commissioner Bret Gilliland feels that their league will be fine since they have a stable set of teams and a television contract in place -- something the Big East does not have:

"It's great [restructuring] for our league going forward, but obviously gives us some advantages as we continue these membership discussions," Gilliland said. "The benefit of that is that gives us some flexibility to sub-license games to other national carriers and do some things creatively, which can help position us in this whole membership carousel."

"We are having conversations with any number of institutions, including Boise State, about how we strengthen and how we further stabilize and further strengthen our league."

The second paragraph is the most interesting because commissioner Craig Thompson has said 10 teams is a solid number, but he also said at one point that 10 also gives them flexibility.

Boise State head coach Chris Petersen also commented on the subject by saying the president will make the best decision for the athletic programs.

Look for talks between Boise State and the Mountain West/Big East now that Christmas is over, and Thompson is back from the Hawai'i Bowl.