{"id":181547,"date":"2026-02-17T15:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T15:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/181547\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T15:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T15:26:08","slug":"sacramento-state-football-officially-joins-mac-in-23-million-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/181547\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento State football officially joins MAC in $23 million deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

On weekday mornings, Nevada Sports Net will recap three big headlines of the day in its Morning Download. Read below for today’s topics.<\/p>\n

1. Sacramento State football officially joins MAC in $23 million deal<\/p>\n

The Mid-American Conference officially announced Monday it is adding Sacramento State football to its conference starting July 1. The Hornets will pay an $18 million entry fee to the MAC plus a $5 million transition payment to the NCAA, making this a $23 million deal. The school also will forgo conference distribution and cover air travel for visiting MAC teams. Of the $18 million entry fee, $6 million will be paid in the first year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a historic moment for Sacramento State \u2014 a bold leap into the future,” Sacramento State president Luke Wood said in a news release. “Our move to the FBS represents more than a change in classification; it is a declaration of who we are and where we\u2019re going. We are elevating our university, our student-athletes, and the entire Greater Sacramento region onto the national stage \u2014 committed to competing, leading, and winning at the highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Nevada softball to battle No. 15\/16 Arizona tonight<\/p>\n

Nevada softball will play a ranked team for the fourth time in the early going this season with tonight’s matchup against No. 15\/16 Arizona at Hillenbrand Stadium. Nevada is 6-4 with all of its losses coming to Power 4 foes, including defeats to ranked LSU (twice) and Arizona State. The Wolf Pack has beaten three Power 4 teams, including Sunday’s win over Indiana. Arizona is 8-3 with two of its three losses to powerhouse Oklahoma, which the Wildcats also beat once. Tonight’s first pitch is 5:15 p.m.<\/p>\n

3. Mountain West swim and dive championships to kick off<\/p>\n

The Mountain West swim and dive championships are set to start Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. at CRWC Natatorium in Houston. The Wolf Pack is coming off a strong regular season and looking for a spot on the podium after a fourth-place finish in 2025, which marked its third straight season without a top-three conference placement after Nevada was in the top three every year from 2014-22. The Wolf Pack’s Scarlett Ferris, Bailey Heydra and Enkhkhuslen Batbayar have all competed at an NCAA Championship level this season. Coach Brendon Bray will join today’s NSN Tonight (at 6, 8 and 10 p.m.) to preview the championships from Houston. <\/p>\n

You can sign up for Nevada Sport Net’s daily newsletter here. Our top headlines are delivered to your inbox every day at 5:15 p.m.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On weekday mornings, Nevada Sports Net will recap three big headlines of the day in its Morning Download.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1956,949,84183,13389,9591,86073,121,123,122,5481,86074],"class_list":{"0":"post-181547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-mid-american-conference","11":"tag-mountain-west","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-nevada-softball","14":"tag-sacramento","15":"tag-sacramento-headlines","16":"tag-sacramento-news","17":"tag-sacramento-state","18":"tag-swim-and-dive-championships"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181547","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=181547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}