The Mountain West sent the conference’s top six teams to this year’s NCAA tournament, resulting in the conference’s top 10 tournament units.
The value of a unit changes every year, so we won’t know exactly how much a 2024 unit will bring to the conference until that unit expires in 2029. But each unit — 132 are awarded each year — is worth about $2 million dollars over a six-year period. one-year payment cycle. That means the MW’s 10 units are worth about $20 million to the conference. This brings the MW to 26 units in the current six-year cycle, including 18 in the last two years. You can attribute a lot of that success to San Diego State, as the Aztecs have racked up eight of those 18 units between 2023 and 2024.
Here’s a breakdown of MW’s active NCAA Tournament units after San Diego State exited the Big Dance following an 82-52 loss to UConn in the Sweet 16 on Thursday. The Aztecs were the last remaining MW team in the field.
Active NCAA Tournament units
2019 units: Two (Nevada and Utah, one each)
2020 units: Tournament canceled due to pandemic
2021 units: Two (SDSU, Utah State, one each)
2022 units: Four (SDSU, Colorado State, Wyoming, Boise State, one each)
2023 units: Eight (SDSU five, Boise State one, Utah State one, Nevada one)
2024 units: 10 (SDSU three, Colorado State two, Utah State two, one from Nevada, one from Boise State, one from New Mexico)
Total units: 26 units (SDSU 10, five from Utah State, three from Nevada, three from Colorado State, three from Boise State, one from Wyoming, one from New Mexico)
MW went 4-6 in this year’s NCAA tournament, a reasonably successful performance. For the first time since becoming a current member of 11 schools in 2013, MW saw multiple teams win a game in the NCAA Tournament with San Diego State’s Sweet 16 appearance, victory in the Utah State’s first round win over TCU and Colorado State’s First Four win. on Virginia. Only SDSU and Utah State made it past the first round, and both of those teams were knocked out of the tournament via 30-plus point losses to the No. 1 seed (Utah State lost to Purdue by 39 points in the second round). Nevada, New Mexico and Boise State were all together in the tournament.
This year marked the first time MW won double digits in a single NCAA tournament. Here is every season where the conference has accumulated at least five units in a tournament with the league record in that tournament in parentheses.
MW’s most NCAA Tournament Units
10 units — 2024 Tournament (4-6)
Eight units — 2023 Tournament (5-4)
Seven units — 2013 Tournament (2-5)
Seven units — 2011 Tournament (4-3)
Six units — 2010 Tournament (2-4)
Five units — 2012 Tournament (1-4)
MW set a conference record for most units in consecutive tournaments. The league had a strong streak from 2010 to 2013, a four-year span in which it recorded at least five units in every tournament. The composition of the conference changed the following season, leading to a decline in overall league performance. It took almost a decade to bounce back before having back-to-back good seasons in the last two years.
As noted above, this year’s 10 NCAA Tournament units will bring $20 million to the conference over the next six years. The MW, like most conferences, distributes this money equally. The conference office doesn’t take a cut, so each of the league’s 11 full-time members is in line to receive $1,818,182 over the next six years starting with this tournament (or $303,030 per year and per school until 2029). The only caveat is that MW could change its distribution formula to align more similar to that of the West Coast Conference, which does not have an equal revenue distribution. This change was made to appease Gonzaga, and San Diego State wants a similar situation in the MW given that it gained 10 of the MW’s 26 active units.
We covered this topic earlier this month in a Mailbag remnant that determined which schools would benefit most from unequal revenue sharing from NCAA tournament units. You can read this column here. While it’s unclear how this year’s tournament money will be distributed moving forward, we do know that the conference just racked up record revenue from a single NCAA Tournament.
Columnist Chris Murray provides insight into Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @ByChrisMurray.
