While San Diego State seems to have its eye on potentially joining a Power Five conference, the university is now maintaining that it never actually left the Mountain West. That’s despite reports linking them to the Pac-12 and elsewhere, and despite a letter earlier this month informing the Mountain West they intended to leave (but asking to negotiate terms). That then turned into the school saying they want to stay after all, only hours before a June 30 deadline. And with the school going on a run to the men’s basketball title game this year, the Mountain West should welcome them back with open arms, right?
Not so fast. Yes, just before the deadline to give the conference official one-year departure notice, San Diego State seemingly reaffirmed its membership to the Mountain West. However, the Mountain West is insisting that the school has formally left the conference, at least until a July meeting of the conference board (where the Aztecs no longer have representation). And the Mountain West is also withholding a $6.6 million media rights distribution share for the 2022-23 academic year for the time being, applying that to SDSU’s exit fee.
“We will discuss the status of SDSU’s membership in the conference at a July meeting of our Board of Directors,” said a July 1 letter from Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez to SDSU President Adela de la Torre, via Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
According to Zeigler, the two sides have exchanged six letters over the past three weeks. In the first letter, de la Torre wrote Nevarez and 11 other presidents “to formally notice that San Diego State University intends to resign.”
Nevarez accepted San Diego State’s resignation in the second letter. But de la Torre later backtracked, saying that their notice of resignation was not an official one and that the first letter was a mere attempt to add an extension to the deadline for a one-year departure notice and additional exit terms.
As per the Mountain West, the $6.6 million that’s being withheld is essentially a down payment on an exit fee (which is around $17 million with a full one-year notice, double that with less notice, which is why the June 30 deadline here mattered). The Mountain West is maintaining that San Diego State resigned, and they’re getting kicked to the curb on July 1, 2024.
For the time being, that media rights payment is being withheld at least until this upcoming Board of Directors meeting. That will take place on July 17.
It should be noted that while neither side is willing to give up much ground, San Diego State recently produced a whole lot of revenue for the conference with their Final Four run. NCAA Tournament payouts to the conference are based on member success, so if SDSU is no longer a member—at least in the Mountain West’s eyes—would the conference still be cashing those revenue checks, which the San Diego Union-Tribune estimates are $10 million over the next six years?
That meeting will probably be tell-all, in this case, determining whether San Diego State has to bid farewell to a conference the school claims it never formally left. It’s seemingly widely anticipated that SDSU will eventually join the Pac-12. But right now, the Pac-12 has no new media deal, which may have led to the delay in the Aztecs’ exit and to this attempt to now claim they didn’t leave. And San Diego State is now not receiving its latest media revenue payment from the Mountain West. So none of this seems great for anyone.