The Mountain West Conference announced Friday that it has accepted Grand Canyon University's membership beginning in the 2026-27 academic year. In doing so, the league is trying to bolster its Pac-12-ravaged ranks with a school embroiled in legal controversies, including over its nonprofit status, which could also affect its standing in the NCAA.

Grand Canyon's move to the MWC as a non-football member comes two weeks after UTEP agreed to join next year as an all-important eighth football member. This gives the league the minimum number of Pigskin participants required to remain an NCAA FBS conference.

“Grand Canyon has been on an upward trajectory over the past decade, both academically and athletically,” MWC Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a news release. “Adding to the league will increase competition across the Mountain West as we strive to earn NCAA postseason bids and compete for national championships.”

Grand Canyon, a member of the WAC since joining Division I in 2013, has earned bids to three of the last four NCAA men's basketball tournaments and fell to Alabama in the second round after defeating Saint Mary's last March Madness .

But despite all of the Lopes' recent successes on the court, GCU has had to face a number of new challenges on court, such as: Sportico has already reported.

Formerly known as Gazelle University, the private Christian university and its former corporate owner-turned-marketing service provider, Grand Canyon Education Inc., are currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission, which accuses GCU of “falsely promoting” a university as a nonprofit . The FTC notes that 60% of the school's annual revenue from tuition, room, board and its sports arena goes to GCE, which is publicly traded on the NASDAQ.

(GCE shares, trading under the ticker symbol #LOPE, fell 90 cents on Friday to close the week at $136.30, down from its 52-week high of $157.53 in early August .)

A Grand Canyon spokesman said Sportico The FTC allegations are “not an issue for the Mountain West.”

Nevarez said in a statement: “All potential member institutions are being vetted. We are confident that GCU, like our other recent additions, aligns with MW’s mission and values.”

In an amended complaint filed in September, the agency tasked with consumer protection argued that a master agreement between GCU and GCE allows the company to benefit “disproportionately” from the school's profits and makes it “impractical” for GCU to ever become the provider change. These and other factors, the FTC contends, fundamentally support Grand Canyon's claim that it converted to a nonprofit organization in July 2018.

The following year, the Department of Education concluded that Grand Canyon had still failed the “operational test” for nonprofit status. After Grand Canyon sued the Department of Education, a federal judge ruled in the agency's favor in 2022. GCU is currently seeking reversal of this decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

While for-profit institutions are permitted to be members of NCAA Division I, they cannot serve on the association's committees, vote or receive direct revenue distributions. The NCAA currently recognizes Grand Canyon as a nonprofit organization and provided $702,330 in direct distributions to the school last fiscal year.

The Phoenix-based school has sought to dismiss the FTC complaint by citing its recognition as a nonprofit organization by the Internal Revenue Service and the state of Arizona, as well as by its institutional accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission.

“People who fully understand these circumstances recognize that the FTC lawsuit is largely a repeat of the same false claims made by the U.S. Department of Education regarding our lawful nonprofit status,” the statement from a Grand Canyon spokesperson said . “The Department of Education’s efforts in coordination with the FTC are clearly the outliers among the objective third parties that have examined these claims.”

Separately, the Department of Education fined Grand Canyon $37.7 million last year after an investigation by the federal Office of Student Aid found that GCU was increasing the cost of its doctoral programs to the detriment of more than 7,500 former and current students had set low. (The school has vehemently denied this.)

Grand Canyon reported $1.8 billion in tuition revenue and $14.2 million in ancillary revenue — including golf, hotel and arena — for the fiscal year ending June 2024. According to the FY23 tax return, the school's highest-paid employee was head basketball coach Bryce Drew, who received $1.37 million in compensation, while Drew's predecessor, Dan Majerle, received $1 million for something that was apparently part of a settlement.

Majerle, the former NBA player known as “Thunder Dan,” sued Grand Canyon in 2020 for breach of contract after he was fired without severance pay. Majerle accused the school where he coached for seven years of continuing to use his name, image and likeness even after he was fired.

Although the parties have not publicly discussed resolving the lawsuit, which was dismissed a month and a half after it was filed, the school also paid Majerle $1 million in FY22, tax filings show. (The school declined to comment when asked about this Friday.)

As for the pending FTC lawsuit, it is unclear how the final ruling in this case would affect Grand Canyon's place within the NCAA, but it likely would not jeopardize its standing in the Mountain West. MWC's charter states that each of its member institutions shall be a “college whose educational programs include intercollegiate athletics,” but does not specify whether an institution must be nonprofit.

In September, five of the current 12 MWC schools — San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and, a week and a half later, Utah State — announced they would be leaving next year to join Washington State and Oregon State in the Pac-12 . The Pac-12 subsequently sued the MWC over the “exorbitant and punitive monetary fees” it imposed on its defectors, arguing that it constituted a form of illegal price-fixing, even though the schools had agreed to so-called “poaching penalties.”

That same month, six of the remaining MWC members – Air Force, New Mexico, San Jose State, UNLV and Nevada, and Hawaii – signed a memorandum of understanding committing to the league while executing a new grant of media rights that expires to next year would range from 2026 to 2032.