The Pac-12’s summer remodel continued yesterday when Texas State “accepted an invitation to join the conference” July 1, 2026, as the eighth all-sports member -- a “vital move that both expands the Pac-12’s footprint into Texas and secures its future,” according to Jon Wilner of the San Jose MERCURY NEWS. The “widely-expected move” comes one week after the Pac-12 revealed a media rights agreement with CBS, which begins next summer and runs for five years. The conference remains “in negotiations with other networks over the football and basketball inventory not covered by the deal with CBS.” That process hinges, in part, “on the next expansion move -- if there is a next expansion move.” Wilner: “The Pac-12 could end its growth phase with eight football members and nine for basketball. Or it could pursue schools in football- or basketball-only capacities. The decision will impact the number of conference games played in each sport, which affects the inventory offered to potential media partners.” Texas State is “expected to receive a partial share” of conference media rights in their initial years, “laddering up to full-share status at the end of the decade” (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 6/30).
YEARS IN THE MAKING: Wilner in a separate piece noted it took 35 years, “five swings and a near-death experience,” but the Pac-12 “finally is planting its flag in Texas.” Texas State allows the Pac-12 to “expand its footprint into the Central Time Zone, which creates more flexibility for kickoff and tipoff times,” and to establish a “foothold in a state that cares more about football than any town, city, region or state west of the Rockies.” The conference first set its sights on the state in 1990, when then-commissioner Tom Hansen “made a play for Texas and Texas A&M” -- but “politics intervened.” Two decades later, Hansen’s successor, Larry Scott, “stunned the college sports world with a bold pursuit of not only Texas but Oklahoma (and others) as he tried to create the first super-conference.” The plan fizzled, as a “dozen years passed” before then-commissioner George Kliavkoff put SMU “in the crosshairs, along with San Diego State.” However, that plan also “never materialized” (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 6/30).
IN THE BUDGET: In San Diego, Mark Zeigler wrote the Mountain West reportedly recruited Texas State as a “replacement for the so-called ‘Pac-stabbers,’” but President Kelly Damphousse correctly read the “realignment tea leaves, knowing the Pac-12 would need an eighth full member that plays football.” The Texas State athletic budget last year was $47M and operated at a $3.4M deficit. That ranks “last among the eight football-playing members” of the Pac-12 -- only Utah State and Fresno State are below $65M -- and is “about half of SDSU’s budget, making even a partial Pac-12 share to start a welcome infusion of cash after getting an estimated” $2M per year from the Sun Belt (San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE, 6/30). In Houston, Greg Luca reported the timing of the move “avoids a financial setback for Texas State,” as the $5M exit fee “was set to double on July 1” (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 6/30).
TEXAS TAKEOVER: CBSSPORTS.com’s Shehan Jeyarajah wrote the college football landscape has “shifted dramatically over the past five years, and no state has felt those changes more than Texas.” Texas State will be the ninth out of 13 FBS teams in the state to “change affiliations since 2021.” Seven of the nine FBS conferences “feature at least one team in the state of Texas,” including three of the four Power Four leagues. The only exceptions are the Midwest-based Big Ten and MAC (CBSSPORTS.com, 6/30).
SPECULATION SQUASHED: In Las Vegas, Ed Graney wrote the addition of Texas State “all but puts an end to speculation that UNLV would ultimately decide to bolt the Mountain West for the Pac-12.” The Pac-12 “unsuccessfully made runs at UNLV and Air Force, who both decided to stay in the Mountain West after receiving major financial incentives from the conference,” as well as Memphis and Tulane from the AAC. Moving forward, UNLV’s immediate goal is to “land in a Power Four conference” such as the Big 12, though it “signed a grant of rights agreement that locks the school into Mountain West membership through 2032” (LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL, 6/30).
