San Diego State, 4 others formally leave Mountain West

There’s no turning back now.

San Diego State and four other Mountain West universities officially submitted notifications of departure, multiple sources within the conference confirmed. The five announced last September that they intend to a re-formed Pac-12 starting in the 2026-27 academic year but faced a June 1 deadline to formally notify the Mountain West to avoid their exit fee doubling from an estimated $18 million to $36 million.

It also means UNLV, Air Force or any of the other remaining Mountain West schools are unlikely to the Pac-12, since it would mean a prohibitively expensive exit fee with less than 12 months’ notice of departure.

It is not the first time SDSU has withdrawn from the Mountain West, which launched in 1999 with eight schools breaking away from the Western Athletic Conference.

It is either the second or third time, depending how you count.

SDSU first left in 2012 with Boise State to the Big East in football and the Big West in basketball and most other sports. But the Big East collapsed, and the two schools were reinstated by the Mountain West before playing a game in their new leagues.

Two years ago, SDSU president Adela de la Torre sent a letter to the Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez and fellow presidents “to formally notice that (SDSU) intends to resign” from the conference amid rumors of an imminent invitation from the Pac-12.

But the Pac-12 imploded, with 10 of 12 scattering to three different power conferences, and SDSU informed the Mountain West that the June 13 letter was indeed “not the official notice of resignation.” A few weeks later, the Mountain West agreed to allow SDSU to remain in the conference in exchange for paying its legal fees from the spat.

This time, though, the Aztecs appear to be gone for good.

The Pac-12 currently has seven football-playing : Pac-12 remnants Oregon State and Washington State, plus SDSU, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State from the Mountain West, plus Gonzaga in basketball and other sports (but not football). It needs to add an eight full member by July 1 to receive certification for the lucrative College Football Playoff starting in 2026-27.

What they’ll pay in exit fees, and what the Pac-12 will owe in “poaching fees” that were part of a 2024 football scheduling agreement with the Mountain West, remains to be determined. A pair of lawsuits challenging the fees are currently in global mediation that began May 19 and, SDSU athletic director John David Wicker said, “continues to progress.”

The Pac-12 is expected to announce a media rights deal shortly as well.

“I’m very pleased where we are from a Pac-12 standpoint,” Wicker told boosters at an athletic department event on Tuesday. “Obviously, we have to add another team. That will happen. I have a good idea of what our TV is going to look like with the Pac-12. Right now, we’re trying to wrap up various items around that. But we have a really good idea of what that will be, and we’re pleased with what that is going to be.

“It feels like the next four or five weeks, there’s a lot that’s going to happen that’s going to help dictate what we’re doing moving forward.”

The notice of withdrawal, which was accompanied by $5,000, was the first step. Mountain West bylaws also allow the conference to withhold the annual July distribution – estimated at $6 million per school – this year and next from the departing schools.

That can cause financial hardship for athletic departments missing $6 million they budgeted as revenues, particularly with state budget cuts looming for SDSU and Fresno State. One possibility floated when SDSU announced it would leave the Mountain West last September is for the Pac-12 to float loans to the incoming schools over the next two years that would be subtracted from future conference distributions.