With both BYU and San Diego State advancing to the Sweet Sixteen, the Mountain West Conference will distribute $1.7 million per year to its league members over the next six years.

“It gives us more money for the future,” said Chuck Lang, SDSU’s associate athletic director for business administration. “We have those shares for the next six years. That’s a good place to start.”

Each tournament game a team plays – excluding the championship – is worth at least $240,000 annually for that team’s league over a rolling six-year period, according to the NCAA’s distribution formula. With at least seven tournament games this year, the MWC will receive at least $1.7 million from this year’s bracket from 2011 through 2016.

The NCAA money comes from television and other sources, with the value of each game expected to grow annually. It’s a relative windfall for the MWC.

Of the $180.5 million in Division I basketball funds to be distributed this year, 63 percent goes to the six power conferences: the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast.