San Diego State’s Final Four run a boon for its conference

HOUSTON (AP)— The joy around the Mountain West Conference is palpable,stretching from the league office to each of its memberschools.

Afternumerous near-misses, San Diego State gave the conference its firstFinal Four team by beating Creightonin theNCAA Tournament last weekend.

“There’s somuch excitement, especially in the Mountain West office, becausewe’re so good in basketball and to finally break through and getthis far is just amazing,” Mountain West Commissioner GloriaNevarez said. “Couldn’t be happier for San Diego State. We’re superexcited.”

They shouldbe.

Getting ateam through to the Final Four is a major boost for mid-majorconferences — financially, promotionally, for visibility on anational scale, event attendance and recruiting.

The financialwindfall comes from what the NCAA calls “units,” a tally of wins,automatic qualifiers and at-large bids that determine how muchconferences are paid. Each distribution year is assigned a valuefor a single unit, which is paid to the conferences over the nextsix years.

The deeper ateam goes in the bracket, the more units they accumulate. In otherwords, more money — well into the millions.

Largerconferences already have large coffers and distribute the moneyentirely to their member schools. Smaller conferences use some ofthe money to cover expenses and distribute the rest to theschools.

Theadditional money allows mid-major conferences to be bolder on thepromotional front and upgrade league tournaments. Schools often usethe influx of money to upgrade facilities, increase campus videoproduction, even on an extra charter flight here or there.

With eachunit at $2 million for this year’s NCAA Tournament, the MountainWest Conference will pull in an additional $16 million, thanks inlarge part to San Diego State’s run to the Final Four. FloridaAtlantic, which will play the Aztecs in Saturday’s nationalsemifinals, earned $10 million for Conference-USA.

“Not that theMissouri Valley, Mountain West or leagues below those expect to getto the Final Four, but it’s just found money and a great boost toyour reputation, your swagger, not to mention financially,” saidGreg Elgin, the Missouri Valley Conference’s commissioner from 1988to 2021. “Everything is better when you have that kind ofsuccess.”

The MissouriValley Conference had two big financial bumps in a five-year span:Wichita State’s run to the 2013 Final Four and Loyola Chicago’s runwith fan favorite Sister Jean in 2018.

Many of theconference’s schools used the money to increase video production ofsports across campus.

When theMissouri Valley Conference first started its digital platform, itproduced about 430 events — some simply a shot of the arena videoboard coupled with the radio feed.

The influx ofmoney from the two deep March Madness runs also includes aproduction stipend, which allows schools to invest more inon-campus production, often with students manning the equipment.Now the Missouri Valley produces about 950 events across allsports.

“It was agame changer for our membership because in the past they didn’thave the wherewithal to do a lot of Olympic sports,” said JackWatkins, Missouri Valley Conference associate commissioner formedia.

The biggestboon came from the Valley’s TV deals.

BeforeWichita State’s run, the conference had a deal for a regular-seasonpackage of four men’s basketball games on ESPN2, six on ESPNU and asub license with CBS to broadcast the conference tournament titlegame.

After theShockers went to the Final Four and opened the next season 35-0,CBS bought the rights from ESPN to show eight regular-season gameson the CBS Sports Network and the semifinals of the conferencetournament — Arch Madness — which had previously been shown onregional sports networks.

FollowingLoyola Chicago’s 2018 Final Four run, CBS told the MVC it waspicking up a four-year option on its sub-license with ESPN,extending what originally had been a five-year deal.

“Whensomebody is doing a sub license, you have to prove yourself all thetime,” Watkins said. “There was a recognition by CBS that, OK,second Final Four school in a five-year span, and they picked upour option for the last four years.”

These deepMarch runs spread all types of wealth.

Attendance atthe conference tournaments typically increases. So do applicationsat individual schools. Recruiting in all sports gets a boost.

Namerecognition gives programs opportunities previously out of theirreach, like multi-team events and off-shore tournaments like theMaui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis.

“This is thebiggest national stage in college basketball and across a lot ofother sports,” Nevarez said. “For us to have a team in this momenton this stage, you can’t buy this kind of advertising.”

No wondereveryone in the league is so happy.