{"id":178675,"date":"2026-02-15T04:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T04:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178675\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T04:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T04:00:08","slug":"reports-sac-state-set-to-join-mac-as-football-only-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178675\/","title":{"rendered":"Reports: Sac State set to join MAC as football-only school"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mid-American Conference reportedly voted to add Sacramento State as a football-only member starting 2026, according to ESPN. <\/p>\n

SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Sacramento State’s aspirations to join a FBS conference look to be finally coming true.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hornets are reportedly making the leap to join after the Mid-American Conference (MAC) voted to formally add Sac State as a football-only member starting in 2026, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The total cost of joining the MAC is reportedly $23 million for Sac State, ESPN says. The university will pay an $18 million entrance fee to the MAC and would need an additional $5 million to the NCAA to move up, according to ESPN.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sac State football currently competes in the Football Subdivision Division (FCS) level of Division I college football. The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) is the highest level in the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The football program left the Big Sky Conference following the 2025 season. The university will compete in the Big West Conference in other sports beginning in the 2026-27 academic year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The university has been ambitious about joining the FBS, previously expressing interest in joining the Pac-12 Conference after several member schools left for other conferences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sac State would have the furthest travel of all MAC teams, as all football programs in the conference are located in Massachusetts, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ABC10 has reached out to the MAC and Sac State and have not heard back at the time of publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ABC10: Watch, Download, Read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mid-American Conference reportedly voted to add Sacramento State as a football-only member starting 2026, according to ESPN.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-178675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-sacramento","9":"tag-sacramento-headlines","10":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}