San Diego State 'in good standing' with Mountain West through 2023-24

According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports, San Diego State will pay the MWC's legal fees from the entanglement that was created when the school served written notice that it intended to leave the conference in the summer of 2024. 

It was believed that the school had designs of joining the Pac-12, which is set to lose USC and UCLA to the Big Ten. San Diego State asked for a one-month extension of its June 2023 notice in order to work out an exit fee from the conference, a request that the conference denied.

In late June, ESPN's Pete Thamel explained that San Diego State requested the extension because it was concerned about how much it would have to pay in an exit fee:

Along with the one-month extension requested in Tuesday's letter, the school also asked the league to consider discussing the exit fee. SDSU noted the income the Aztecs have generated for the Mountain West through the NCAA basketball tournament — estimated this March to be at least $10M — none of which it see if it leaves the league.

San Diego State requested that a four-year installment plan be considered for the exit fee. As of now, SDSU would have to pay the fee by June 2024, which would include the league withholding payment of its distribution to the school.

The fee, according to The Athletic's Chris Vannini, would be three years' worth of conference payouts for exiting with one-year notice ($17M) and double for less than a year's notice ($34M). 

Clearly that's too rich for SDSU's blood, even after the bump in revenues from the men's basketball team's stunning run to the national championship in April.

San Diego State had conversations with the Pac-12, but the Power 5 conference has been in the midst of negotiating a media rights package worthy of keeping its other members on board. Those media talks have dragged on so long that SDSU found itself in the unenviable position of having to crawl back to the MWC.

It's safe to assume that both the MWC and SDSU are giving themselves time to work out better deals. For SDSU, the Pac-12 (or even the Big 12) could still be in the cards but not until the dust settles once USC and UCLA depart. 

For the Mountain West, losing San Diego State is far from ideal but it would have to raid other conferences to replace its top athletic program.