Feb. 16, 2026, 2:33 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Sacramento State became the second FCS program to make the jump to the FBS this offseason last week.<\/p>\n
After North Dakota State announced its move to the Mountain West beginning in 2026, the Hornets<\/a> reached a deal to join the MAC as a football-only member, also beginning the season. The move ended Sac State’s long quest to move up from the FCS ranks, in which it originally left the Big Sky to become a football independent beginning this season.<\/p>\n The move, which was officially announced on Monday, is going to be a costly one for the Hornets. The official terms of the deal with the MAC were revealed by Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, who reported that Sacramento State will not take a revenue distribution over an initial five-year period.<\/p>\n With the school becoming a far-flung outpost in the MAC, Dellenger also reported that the Hornets will cover all opponents’ air travel in conference play. They will also pay $6 million of the $18 million entry fee in Year 1.<\/p>\n This deal certainly will raise some questions about Sacramento State’s financial viability at the next level, but at least for now, they will be competing in the FBS, which will expand to 138 teams for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Contact\/Follow@College_Wire<\/a> on X and@College_Wires<\/a> on Threads. Like our page on Facebook<\/a> to follow ongoing coverage of college sports news, notes, and opinions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 16, 2026, 2:33 p.m. ET Sacramento State became the second FCS program to make the jump to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[243,121,123,122,9201,8647,378,3143,1350,261,22201,85202,1345,85203,259,47951,377,246],"class_list":{"0":"post-180584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-sacramento","10":"tag-sacramento-headlines","11":"tag-sacramento-news","12":"tag-sstssportscollegecollege-football","13":"tag-sstsncollege-football","14":"tag-tagamerican-football","15":"tag-tagcollege-football","16":"tag-tagcollege-sports","17":"tag-tagcolleges-universities","18":"tag-tagfacebook","19":"tag-tagmid-american-conference-football","20":"tag-tagncaa-mountain-west-conference","21":"tag-tagnorth-dakota-state-bison-football","22":"tag-tagoverall-negative","23":"tag-tagsacramento-state-hornets-football","24":"tag-tagsports-news","25":"tag-typestory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180584","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=180584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}