The Mountain West was seeking $100 million in exit fees from its departing five schools and another $55 million in poaching fees from the Pac-12 in a conference marriage gone bad.

The divorce settlement is for less than half that.

That’s according to multiple sources inside and outside the conferences who spoke on the condition of anonymity in the wake of Monday’s joint announcement that they had finalized a settlement first reported by the Union-Tribune back in May.

The statement said San Diego State and the four other defectors “have reached final agreements to settle all pending litigation among the parties.”

The federal court in Northern California hearing the case had given the two sides until Sept. 1 to formalize the settlement. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9.

The statement did not provide financial details, but several sources offered a rough outline of terms.

SDSU, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State are each on the hook for just under $10 million in exit fees — less than half the estimated $20 million due under Mountain West bylaws for leaving with one year’s notice.

Oregon State and Washington State will pay slightly more in poaching fees from a 2024 football scheduling agreement that, as it was written, started at $10 million for each Mountain West school that joined a reformed Pac-12 and increased from there. The cost for five schools was $55 million.

In all, the total settlement for both exit and poaching fees is believed to be just north of $70 million, or less than 50 cents on the dollar. One source put it closer to 47 cents.

It amounts to money going in both directions.

Mountain West bylaws allow the conference to withhold annual distributions from a school as soon as it submits a formal notice of departure. That happened in June 2025, meaning the Mountain West kept roughly $6 million per school from both the July 2025 and July 2026 distributions — and now would owe them roughly $2 million.

That money presumably will come from the incoming poaching fees owed by Oregon State and Washington State, somewhere between $22 million and $24 million total.

Administrators contacted on both sides of the litigation, including SDSU Athletic Director John David Wicker, declined comment and referred to Monday’s statement.

“With these matters concluded,” it said, “the conferences and institutions can move forward with certainty and focus on serving their student-athletes, campuses, fans, and communities.”

It ends a contentious legal battle that began 22 months earlier, filed just weeks after SDSU and four others left the Mountain West to join Oregon State and Washington State in a reconstituted Pac-12 that officially launched last month. Mediation last summer seemed hopeful at first but ultimately stalled with the two sides miles apart on settlement terms.

What may have helped open the pickle jar was a series of court rulings last spring on motions and counterclaims, including one that allowed discovery of confidential correspondence between Mountain West presidents. The day before a key discovery hearing in May, the two sides announced they had provisionally agreed to settle.

For departing schools like SDSU, the smaller exit fee moves them closer to making the Pac-12 move profitable. Terms of the conference’s new media rights deal have not been released, but it is expected to be worth a few million dollars more per year than what they received in the Mountain West.

Say it’s $3.3 million more per year. Had the departing schools paid the full $20 million in exit fees, that would have been a wash over the Pac-12’s six-year grant-of-rights term.

Now they can presumably see gains in Year 4 of 5.

For the Mountain West, the question becomes whether it can satisfy financial obligations to the remaining six members with less than half of the $155 million it sought.

To retain them, the Mountain West offered a distribution plan for the incoming exit and poaching fees in exchange for signing a grant of rights that binds them to the conference for six years. Payments were due to start no later than July 1.

Court documents revealed how the Mountain West would distribute $100 million.

Of the first $61 million collected, UNLV and Air Force are each set to receive 24.5%, or $14.9 million. Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State and Wyoming would get $7 million each, and Hawaii would get $3 million.

The next $18 million, the memorandum of understanding says, is “held in reserve and used by the conference to cover the expenses associated with recruiting new member institutions.” (The Mountain West added UTEP in all sports; Grand Canyon in all sports except football, which it doesn’t play; Hawaii in all sports after only playing Mountain West football previously; Northern Illinois and North Dakota State in football only; and UC Davis in everything but football.)

That covers the first $79 million collected, or several million dollars more than where sources put the final settlement number. The conference is supposed to distribute the next $21 million according to the original percentages and only then pay any legal expenses, which figure to be hefty after 22 months of litigation.

The agreement also stipulates that the Mountain West pledges to maintain annual media rights fee distributions at current levels, or roughly $3.5 million per school per year, even if the conference’s new TV deal is below that.