The West Coast Conference has filed a lawsuit against Grand Canyon for breach of contract after the university decided last month to withdraw from its involvement with the WCC and join the Mountain West.

“This is clearly a breach of contract,” WCC commissioner Stu Jackson told ESPN. “Our conference bylaws state that all financial obligations must be satisfied within 30 days of written notice of withdrawal from the conference. They submitted a notice of withdrawal on November 1 and failed to comply with these financial obligations to pay the remaining entry fee into the WCC as well as the withdrawal fee We intend to be made complete.

The lawsuit seeks damages, interest and other fees. It does not say how much money he believes WCC owes, and Jackson declined to provide those details to ESPN.

In May, GCU announced it was leaving the Western Athletic Conference to join the WCC as a full-time member starting in 2025.

According to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, GCU has made one of two scheduled buy-in payments to the WCC, with the second due in January. The lawsuit states that under the terms of its contract with the WCC, GCU was required to make an exit payment within 30 days of WCC notifying it of its joining the Mountain West.

GCU has informed the WCC that it does not intend to make those payments, Jackson said.

“We understand the disappointment in our decision to ultimately decline WCC’s invitation, and we understand the circumstances in which we also recently lost prominent members such as BYU and Gonzaga,” Grand Canyon said in a statement released Thursday. “GCU was not scheduled to become a member of the WCC before July 1, 2025, and WCC’s allegations that GCU “withdrew” from the WCC or breached a contractual obligation are inaccurate. We look forward to presenting our case in court.”

GCU became the second school to announce it would leave the WCC after Gonzaga decided to leave the conference for the Pac-12.