It’s officially official. San Diego State, nearly two years after the first announcement of the shift, has become part of the rebuilt Pac-12 Conference.
On Wednesday, SDSU and four other former Mountain West Conference schools – Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State – formally traded their old home for the Pac-12.
John David Wicker, San Diego State’s athletic director, called it a “momentous day” for the program.
“Entry into the Pac-12 ushers in the next great era of Aztec Athletics,” he said in a news release.
The new members were announced in September 2024 but due to contractual obligations and legal reasons, their move to the Pac-12 just now became official. Texas State, which came over from the Sun Belt Conference, and Gonzaga, which had been in the West Coast Conference, also join them in the Pac-12, which had retained holdovers Oregon State and Washington State.
And yes, despite the name, there’s only nine schools in the current version of the Pac-12, at least for now. The conference has a dozen “affiliate” members in Olympic sports, including UC San Diego.
And as for why SDSU and the other universities made the move, the answer is easy: a chance to increase their national profiles and make more money.
Until most of its previous members fled, the Pac-12 had been a “Power Five” conference, meaning it had been one of the most prominent and highest revenue-generating conferences in college sports.
Even now, it has higher name recognition nationally than the Mountain West, and that translates to higher-value media rights for conference games, which in turn means more revenue that can be poured into athletic programs in the form of facility improvements, NIL money for players and coaching salaries.
In fact, the reason why 10 former members of the Pac-12 – including USC and UCLA – left for the Big 12 and Big Ten in 2024 was to chase even higher media rights revenue.
The newly launched Pac-12 debuted with CBS Sports, USA Network and The CW as its media partners for all league-controlled football broadcasts. Most of its regular season men’s basketball home games and about two dozen women’s basketball home regular season games will air on one or more partner networks.
Additionally, all of the Pac-12’s football games will appear on national television – either over the air or on cable TV – culminating with the Pac-12 championship game on CBS and Paramount+.
About 70% of the conference’s men’s home basketball games will air on CBS, CBS Sports Network, USA Network or The CW. The Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament will air on USA, with the exception of the championship game, which will be broadcast on CBS.
Fifteen regular season women’s basketball games are set to air on The CW and up to 10 on USA, with the conference tournament semifinals and championship slated for The CW.
The 2027 men’s and women’s tournaments will be held March 9-13 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, with the women’s games taking place ahead of the men’s each day.
So, from a purely sports perspective, what does this shift mean for the Aztecs’ basketball and football teams, as well as the school’s other athletic programs?
Since San Diego State used to play four of the other teams in the new Pac-12 at least once a year in football and two or three times every season in basketball, there’s obviously going to be a familiarity. A plus for the Aztecs is that they’ll be able to keep alive the rivalries they developed over the years with the other ex-Mountain West programs.
As far as the other schools, Gonzaga doesn’t field a football team, but its men’s basketball team has been stellar for a generation. It typically finishes in the Top 20 of the Associated Press and Coaches Polls each season and last played in the NCAA national championship game in 2021, losing to 86-70 to Baylor.
Since then, the team has appeared in the NCAA tournament each season, advancing as far as the Elite 8.
Pac-12 holdovers Oregon State and Washington State each have football and men’s baseball and basketball programs. The OSU Beavers are traditionally strong in baseball, and have won the College World Series three times, most recently in 2018.
The WSU Cougars have not been standouts in any of the big three sports over the decades, but have periodically won conference crowns. They have yet to capture a national championship in any men’s sport.
One football team the Aztecs will likely to butt heads with for a place at the top of the conference standings is old rival Boise State, one of the more complete teams in the new Pac-12 due to returning 13 starters total from last season’s squad.
And in baseball, Washington State, which beat SDSU in the 2026 Mountain West Conference baseball tournament in May before bowing out in the NCAA Division I baseball tournament, is a team to watch.
