If WVU@FSU can be cancelled for $500,000, can any West Virginia game have a market value above $1M? So can damages to the Big East realistically be more than $7M? And if $7M damages is the upper limit, can that really be called “irreparable harm”?

What (if anything) does this mean for the chances of an injunction?

A judge isn’t just going to make up numbers. He’s going to listen to arguments about actual financial damages suffered. He’s also going to listen to West Virginia’s lawyers arguments as to why the Big East’s numbers are wildly inflated.

The Big East exit fee in the contract is $5M. West Virginia has paid $2.5M. Let’s assume for now that WV’s claims about moneys owed are fluff, that those checks are in the mail already or something. So West Virginia owes $2.5M, plus damages.

The damages come from the 7 game, Mountaineer-shaped hole in the schedule. If WVU @ FSU is worth $500,000, how is the Big East going to argue that 7 WVU games are worth much more than $500,000 × 7 = $3,500,000?

WEst Virginia will be paying the Big East’s legal fees, that’s true. But confounding the TV negotiations that haven’t started yet, for a contract that would take effect in 2013, when WV is leaving legally in 2014? When no one expects WV, Syracuse and Pitt to actually be in a 19-team/13 team Big East for 2013-14? Don’t expect to collect much on that claim.

Football is the only sport where West Virginia leaving means that the Big East is short teams. That’s the thing about a 16-team league. There won’t be gaps in the schedules, you just schedule differently for a 15-team league. And, except for basketball, they’re non-revenue sports, so there’s a low ceiling on damages there.

As for the TV contracts, West Virginia’s lawyers will be able to cite plenty of Big East testimony that their TV rights are worth more on the open market than what ESPN is paying—WV is doing the league a favor if ESPN tries to reduce the contract, giving the Big East an early out. (The contract just can’t say, we’re giving you less money, like it. There has to be an option to void the contract in that case. Unless the contract reduces the payout by 1/8 for football, 1/16 for basketball, in which case there’s no harm to any Big East school.)

There was an agreement on a $10M exit fee if Navy and Air Force joined. That never came into effect. There was also an agreement on a $10M exit fee when the new schools joined. But that was after WVU announced they were leaving, so they’re not a party to that agreement. I don’t think that’s relevant to “how much damage does a WV early exit do.”

No matter how meritless WV’s claims, if they can show that the damages to the Big East can be fixed with money, then they get to pay money instead of sticking around.

The precedent here seems to be that exit timelines are worthless. More conferences will move to tiered exit fees like the Mountain West’s, where if you give 12 months notice you forfeit your last year’s conference revenue, if you give less notice you pay $5M or 3x your last year’s conference revenue. (Details unclear, but you get the idea.)