{"id":180549,"date":"2026-02-16T20:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T20:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180549\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T20:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T20:40:11","slug":"sacramento-state-officially-joins-the-mid-american-conference-the-state-hornet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180549\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento State officially joins the Mid-American Conference \u2013 The State Hornet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago, it was announced<\/a> that Sacramento State would join the Mid-American Conference beginning in the 2026 season, becoming the first West Coast university<\/a> to join college football\u2019s highest division since 1969.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, the deal becomes official, and for President Luke Wood, it\u2019s a major step in his ambitious goals for the university.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a different offer to the MAC than we did to other conferences, because of the media value that they represented,\u201d Wood said. \u201cIt\u2019s the media exposure, MACtion is on ESPN, and it allows us to go from local broadcasts to national broadcasts on a regular basis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The MAC, known for their mid-week \u201cMACtion\u201d football games, presented a lucrative FBS option and significant exposure that goes beyond just athletics. The deal extends five years, per the official release<\/a> from the MAC\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a $675 million media valuation, so over the five-year agreement we have, we go from where we\u2019re at right now to that $675 million media valuation,\u201d Wood said. \u201cThe exposure of the university on a national stage has a significant increase on the value of a Sac State degree. You have students who will graduate from Sacramento State, and their degree will be worth more in the marketplace.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As is typical for schools that move conferences, Sac State will forgo media revenue for five years, a shorter period than seen for North Dakota State\u2019s recent move to the Mountain West.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sac State will also cover the air travel of visiting teams and pay $6 million of the $18 million dollar fee in the first year, per Ross Dellenger<\/a> at Yahoo Sports.\u00a0During the five years, Sac State aims to pay off their $18 million buy-in, plus the standard $5 million FBS entry fee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this is being paid by student fees, tuition or by the general fund,\u201d Wood said. \u201cAll of this is being primarily paid for by game guarantees. As an FBS school, we can get $1 million to $1.5 million per game. Sam Houston was paid $1.5 million to go play Oregon State and beat them at home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

With game guarantees and major increases to game revenue, Wood put it simply: \u201cFootball is paying for football.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

RELATED: BREAKING: Cal Expo board votes unanimously to enter exclusive negotiations with Sac State<\/a><\/p>\n

With the move, the campus expects major upgrades to Hornet Stadium as a new stadium is planned and built at Cal Expo.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be an updated Hornet Stadium for the next two years,\u201d Wood said. \u201cAs a part of our agreement with the MAC, we are making [Hornet Stadium] FBS-ready. We\u2019re adding a new locker room for the visiting team and end zone seating that makes the stadium more wraparound.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hornets had games scheduled in the event that they played the upcoming season as an FCS independent, but will abandon those games in favor of the new conference schedule, with one exception.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all of our agreements that we had, it was noted that if we became FBS, we would be released from that contract,\u201d Wood said. \u201cIn all those cases, that was done with the exception of Fresno State, which is a preseason game and one we absolutely plan to keep.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sac State won\u2019t be eligible for postseason football right away, although a waiver to avoid that isn\u2019t off the table. When that ineligibility is lifted, the goal is clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBy 2028, I absolutely expect us to be competing for a conference championship and playing in our first bowl game,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two days ago, it was announced that Sacramento State would join the Mid-American Conference beginning in the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-180549","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\/180549","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=180549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}