Tag: San Diego State Mountain West

Mountain West accepts San Diego State as a member school

Yahoo! was first. ESPN confirmed it. It appears the #Aztecs will be in the Mountain West for the 2024-2025 college sports cycle.

As soon as San Diego State did not leave the Mountain West by the June 30 deadline, this outcome seemed likely. Now it appears to be coming true, though another plot twist might still await: The Mountain West has accepted San Diego State as a member school. Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports was first. ESPN’s Pete Thamel and others confirmed the report.

This decision by the Mountain West would seem to lock San Diego State into the Mountain West for the 2024-2025 college sports cycle. Notably, the Mountain West did not demand a $16.5 million exit fee for leaving the conference before June 30. There had been some confusion earlier this summer about whether San Diego State’s mid-June letter to the Mountain West represented an actual departure from the conference or merely a statement of intent. The MWC’s decision to not demand the large exit fee seemingly puts San Diego State in a position where staying in the conference for one more cycle is the Aztecs’ most reasonable and least costly move under the circumstances.

The Pac-12 has not extended an invitation to San Diego State. This fact is accompanied by breaking news from Tuesday in which the Pac-12 said it would not have a media rights deal done this week. Whether this means San Diego State could re-enter the picture for the Pac-12 once the media rights deal is finalized remains to be seen. That is the lingering point of uncertainty in all of this.

The odds are good that San Diego State will be in the Mountain West for the 2024-2025 college sports cycle, but whether the Aztecs will be a long-term member of the Mountain West is an entirely different question.

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The Mountain West had a meeting on Monday, but nothing was announced

The conference said nothing about its Monday board meeting. Mountain West media days are Wednesday and Thursday.

The wait continues. We are all waiting for a final, definitive announcement from someone about the fate of the San Diego State Aztecs. Where will they be in the 2024-2025 college sports cycle? Will the Pac-12 expand to 12 teams after the departures of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten? Will there be an announcement of a Pac-12 media rights deal?

These questions linger in the summer before the start of the new college sports cycle and the 2023 college football season. Everyone in the industry, and all the fans at various schools, would like this business to be concluded before college football begins. No one wants games to be interrupted by realignment news.

Beyond that, however, it would seem to be in the best interest of all parties to have clarity and closure before football begins. Realignment is volatile enough as it is; adding to the uncertainty of this process by dragging out conference membership dramas and media rights negotiations doesn’t seem to help anyone.

Yet, the lack of news — and the lack of announcements from anyone in the San Diego State-Pac-12-Mountain West triumvirate — remains conspicuous as we head into Mountain West media days on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by Pac-12 media day on Friday.

The Mountain West held a board meeting on Monday in which San Diego State was presumably a top agenda item.

The conference did not make any announcement about SDSU coming out of the board meeting, leaving us all to continue to speculate about what might happen later this week.

Stay here for continuing coverage of this San Diego State story, accompanied by coverage of Pac-12 media day this Friday.

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Trojans Wire discusses San Diego State, Mountain West chess moves on YouTube show

What is the #Aztecs’ next move? What should it be? We explored this continuing, lingering drama at the @VoiceOfCFB.

The clock is ticking.

It is the morning of July 7, two weeks from Pac-12 media day on July 21. Everyone inside and outside the Pac-12 Conference, everyone in the college sports industry, fully expects the Pac-12 to have finalized a media rights deal by then. When Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff addresses the public and the press in Las Vegas on that day, he and his conference will need to have a media rights package to show to the world.

He will need to have arrived at an arrangement which satisfies the 10 Pac-12 schools left behind after USC and UCLA chose to move to the Big Ten. He will need to have a price point which is competitive with the Big 12. It would seem to be in the Pac-12’s best interests to be able to extend an invitation to San Diego State and SMU in accordance with Pac-12 media day, to not only own the news cycle but attach that news cycle to a big and positive event which means more revenue and exposure for the league and guarantees its short-term survival (for at least the rest of the decade).

Yet, San Diego State has not yet received an invitation from the Pac-12. The Mountain West has publicly stated that San Diego State has essentially left the Mountain West, and is therefore in limbo. What’s next for SDSU, the Mountain West, and the Pac-12? We talked about this at The Voice of College Football in one of the latter segments of the show. Most of the show dealt with USC recruiting, but toward the end of the broadcast, we focus on SDSU and this realignment drama:

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There might be a way for San Diego State, Mountain West to part amicably

What seems on the surface to be an amateur-hour clown show could actually be the solution to the #Aztecs’ situation.

The San Diego State-Mountain West soap opera took another turn on Monday. This twisting, turning theater of the absurd just gets weirder the more it continues.

You know that San Diego State sent a letter to the Mountain West on June 13 in which it stated that it was not formally asking to leave the conference but was considering its options in realignment and wanted more time to make its decision. San Diego State, if it left the Mountain West by June 30, would have been on the hook for $16.5 million in exit fees. If it left the conference after June 30, that figure would roughly double to $34 million.

The suspense attached to SDSU’s situation flowed from the Pac-12’s lingering inability to finalize its new media rights deal, which industry experts say will be done by July 21, which is Pac-12 media day. The general point of agreement among a lot of commentators was that San Diego State wanted to wait for the Pac-12 to finalize its deal and then extend an invitation.

The Pac-12 still has not finalized its deal, however. Meanwhile, the June 30 deadline came and went. San Diego State said on June 30 that it intended to remain in the Mountain West for the time being.

So, SDSU will stay in the Mountain West, right? The Aztecs aren’t going to leave now, in July, because that would mean the $34 million exit fee instead of the $16.5 million fee. The Aztecs have said they can’t afford to pay the $34 million (double) fee.

The latest news in this saga is that the Mountain West isn’t accepting San Diego State’s June 30 declaration that it is staying in the conference. The Mountain West is treating the earlier June 13 letter as a formal declaration of departure from the conference.

Say what?

That’s right: A letter SDSU said was just exploratory and not an official declaration of departure is being viewed as a true statement of departure by the Mountain West. On the surface, it seems like a huge disagreement and an irreparable situation.

Yet, from this clouded picture of disagreement and mixed signals could come the solution all parties can agree with.

If San Diego State thinks it hasn’t left the Mountain West and should owe zero in exit fees (because it hasn’t exited, in its own view of the situation), but the Mountain West thinks San Diego State has left and should owe $16.5 million in exit fees (because the June 13 letter was before the June 30 deadline).

You will note that the Mountain West is not asking for the double exit fee of $34 million.

San Diego State could simply say, “We don’t think we left the Mountain West, but hey, if you (the Mountain West) think we’ve left, we’ll just wait for the Pac-12 to finalize its media deal. Then we’ll get an invitation. Then we’ll join the Pac-12. Then we’ll happily pay the $16.5 million exit fee.”

San Diego State leaves but doesn’t pay the maximum exit fee.

The Mountain West gets an exit fee and yet doesn’t seem like the bad guy in all of this.

Both sides save face and can move on without costly litigation.

Sounds like a win-win.

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Trojans Wire joins Salt Lake City radio show to discuss San Diego State, Pac-12

What the heck is going on with the #Aztecs and the #Pac12? We talked to @KSLUnrivaled at the @KSLSportsZone in SLC.

You know by now that San Diego State did not leave the Mountain West Conference by the June 30 deadline. The Aztecs are going to play the next two seasons (through 2024-2025) in the Mountain West, barring a significant plot twist or reversal in the coming weeks. One should not expect that to happen, but then again, most of us who cover the Pac-12 expected San Diego State to make its move by June 30, and that didn’t happen.

What’s going on here? What is happening? Why did the Aztecs not make a move? What is the Pac-12’s perspective on all this? What makes sense here (very little) and what doesn’t add up (a lot!)?

We explored a lot of the different ins and outs of this wild and meandering story at KSL Unrivaled, the drive-time radio show in Salt Lake City. KSL Unrivaled is part of the KSL Sports Zone and KSL Sports, at 97.5 FM.

Our segment of roughly 20 minutes begins at 2:10 in the audio clip below. Thanks to the KSL Sports Zone and KSL Unrivaled for having us on the show.

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REPORT: San Diego State will not exit Mountain West (at least not by June 30)

The #Aztecs have reportedly (per ESPN’s Pete Thamel) chosen to stay in the Mountain West … but what’s the next move here?

Everyone wondered if it would happen. It did not happen — not by the June 30 deadline, at least.

San Diego State University has, according to Pete Thamel of ESPN, chosen to stay in the Mountain West Conference instead of leaving before the midnight (Mountain time) deadline on Friday, June 30. The Aztecs were on the hook for an extra $17.5 million if they did not leave the Mountain West before the deadline but then left after June 30. Presumably, the school wants to not only avoid that larger exit fee, but also the base exit fee.

San Diego State would have needed to pay a $16.5 million exit fee for leaving the Mountain West by June 30. That fee was believed to be at or near $34 million if the Aztecs make a decision to leave after the June 30 deadline.

San Diego State is doing something normal in the industry, as opposed to leaving one conference without having a formal invitation from another conference. SDSU was not invited to the Pac-12 (at least not by June 30) because the conference and commissioner George Kliavkoff have not yet finalized a media rights deal. The Pac-12 had to secure that package and consider the value of SMU in the equation before it extended San Diego State an invitation … or at least, that’s the prevailing thought in the industry.

We have to wait and see if the Pac-12 media rights deal, once it is eventually agreed to, will gain a price point which will satisfy current Pac-12 members, and if that rights deal has details and clauses which shed more light on why San Diego State has chosen — for now — to stay in the Mountain West.

Stay tuned.

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