Mountain West shouldn’t flinch in game of chicken

Let’s review the basic principles: While one side prefers not to yield to another, the scenario in which neither yields is the worst possible outcome for all involved.

That won’t happen when it comes to conference expansion in Division I-A athletics.

There might be a few casualties along the way, but it shouldn’t result in some giant catastrophe.

This isn’t your typical game of chicken.

Question is, who moves first?

Answer: It shouldn’t be the Mountain West.

Conferences have adopted this stance to dare others into swerving and showing their hand, to initiate the process that could and probably will change the face of collegiate athletics forever.

Know this: When all the maneuvering and defecting and wheeling and dealing is complete, when we are left with a handful of super conferences or perhaps a landscape much like the one we know today, things will never be the same, beginning with football.

The Mountain West remained part of such gamesmanship Monday, choosing not to add Boise State and instead publicly stating its intention to sit and wait and watch as dominoes fall elsewhere.

For now, the nine-team league UNLV calls home isn’t about to swerve.

Risk is involved, but you have to think it’s minimal for a league such as the MWC. You have to think things can get only better for it by waiting.

This is one of those rare times when not being a Bowl Championship Series league might still result in a positive outcome financially.

"We’re not going to dictate the timeline, but we’ll act accordingly," Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson said. "You could make a decision independent and separate, and that could be an outcome. You may be forced to act and react accordingly, but you can also set your own prerogative.

"The (MWC) will continue to monitor developments and conduct its due diligence to prepare for potential scenarios."

Translation: It will wait as long as it takes to secure the best deal, because it has to.

During his news conference from Jackson, Wyo., Thompson spoke about his league being proactive and reactive simultaneously in regards to expansion, but so far it has shown to be far more the latter.

It’s the correct hand to play. In many ways, it’s the only one.

This is about money. Money and cable TV contracts. Period. It’s always about securing for your member institutions the best possible windfall. Today, that means increasing the number of cable subscribers that watch your games.

That means doing whatever is possible to secure the kind of cable revenue generated annually — in the neighborhood of $20 million per team — by the Big Ten Network.

The Mtn. would never realize such riches, but what at times has been a network ridiculed for its reach and overall placement within college athletics could become a bigger player by the conference adding the correct schools.

A bigger player means bigger revenue streams.

While you don’t want to be the last conference standing in the cold while the others celebrate newfound wealth inside, the Mountain West doesn’t own the juice to change the college terrain beyond adding Boise State.

That should still happen, perhaps before July 1, the deadline for the Broncos to inform the Western Athletic Conference of their intentions to bolt to be eligible for Mountain West play in 2011.

Boise State is coming. Just not today.

In waiting to discover what the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and others might ultimately do, Thompson’s league will have a far better grasp on how big it can and should become, not to mention which teams will be available to invite.

A Mountain West Conference with Boise State is much stronger today.

A Mountain West Conference with Boise State, Kansas and Kansas State is even stronger.

The 16-team WAC was a disaster in the mid-1990s, a conference that never created the sort of revenue it promised member schools.

There probably won’t be enough quality programs left to make a 16-team Mountain West viable given how powerful other leagues could be once expansion begins.

But the number 12 sounds awfully good.

"The next time I call (MWC presidents about expansion), it will be an important call," Thompson said. "Whether it be two weeks from now, a month from now, never.

"Everything is still on the table. (Not expanding) is just a decision based on today at the conclusion of our board meeting.

"It’s active and could be revisited at any time."

Translation II: A pretty interesting game of chicken is going on, and the Mountain West, in hopes of becoming the best it can be, must wait for others to swerve first.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.