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<\/p>\nLuke Wood remembers roaming Sacramento State\u2019s campus as a student. Long before the current university president wore suits to work, he recalls living out of his car as an undergrad, \u201cnot knowing when my next meal would come.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is in that same spirit that he now pushes the Hornets football program into a conference clear on the other side of the continent.<\/p>\n
Wood couldn\u2019t sign the contract fast enough. The deal, a football-only move from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision and Mid-American Conference, marked the apex of his three-year presidency and his quest to transform Sacramento State into a national brand.<\/p>\n
When the ink dried on Feb. 13, Sacramento State became the first West Coast school to jump to the FBS in 57 years. The total price tag on history: $23 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was unquestionably the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever been part of,\u201d Wood told The Athletic. \u201cBecause everybody was rooting against this, rather than rooting for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be real: It is an investment, and it is a lot of money. I also think that in five years, people are going to say, \u2018Wow, that was a sweetheart deal.\u2019 Because I think the price of doing business is only going up. The value of being at FBS is only going up.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n From left, Sacramento State president Luke Wood, football coach Alonzo Carter and athletic director Mark Orr hold up a jersey after announcing Carter\u2019s hire in December 2025. (Courtesy of Sacramento State Athletics)<\/p>\n
For Wood\u2019s gamble to pay off, it almost assuredly has to.<\/p>\n
Sacramento State is paying millions to play football in a conference three time zones away, and will cover travel expenses for every league game it participates in over the next five years for the right to do so. The Hornets will do it without collecting any revenue sharing and with no guarantee of remaining in the MAC when the agreement ends in 2030.<\/p>\n
Still, a school that announced a $37 million deficit and campus layoffs a year ago forges ahead, with Wood intent on turning Sacramento State football into an \u201cactivator\u201d that drives enrollment and visibility.<\/p>\n
UC Davis athletic director Rocko DeLuca, once a deputy AD at UMass when the Minutemen jumped from FCS to FBS, knows the perils of such ambitions. He saluted Sacramento State\u2019s push, but also offered a warning.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes all that glitters isn\u2019t gold,\u201d DeLuca said. \u201cIt\u2019s a bigger leap than people realize.\u201d<\/p>\n
The investment<\/p>\n
The move is a financial leap of faith, with Sacramento diving headfirst into deep water.<\/p>\n
According to Wood and athletic director Mark Orr, the school will pay a $5 million FBS reclassification fee and $18 million to the Mid-American Conference over five years \u2014 $6 million up front and $3 million annually after that.<\/p>\n
Both said the initial $6 million MAC payment and $5 million reclassification fee will come from nonstate sources, corporate sponsorships, philanthropic gifts, campus food sales and other nonfederal revenue. Not from new student fees or the state\u2019s general fund.<\/p>\n
The goal is for football to one day fund itself. The deal\u2019s terms \u2014 no revenue sharing and Sacramento State covering visiting teams\u2019 travel despite the nearest MAC member being nearly 2,000 miles away \u2014 require long-term investment. It\u2019s a deal the school\u2019s chief financial officer, Rose McAuliffe, said the university has long prepared to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been saving for the last couple of years,\u201d McAuliffe said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like, all of a sudden, we\u2019re, \u2018Oh no, what do we do?\u2019 There\u2019s a thought process.\u201d<\/p>\n
For MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher, the deal offered little risk and plenty of reward.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt ended up being a very strong business deal for our conference,\u201d Steinbrecher said. \u201cWhich was certainly attractive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sacramento sits in a top-20 media market, with roughly 2.5 million people in the metro area and only one major pro team, the Sacramento Kings. Wood believes the region can, and should, support high-level Division I football.<\/p>\n
But not without upgrades. The 21,000-seat Hornet Stadium \u2014 deemed substandard for FBS football in a 2023-24 Colleges Sports Solutions feasibility study \u2014 will be renovated with student fees already designated for athletic facilities.\u00a0The operating budget must rise, too. The school\u2019s 2025 FBS application, obtained by The Athletic through a public records request, lists a $31 million budget projected to rise to $40.1 million during reclassification.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a status,\u201d Orr said. \u201cWe can legitimately tell our student-athletes, our recruits, and our community, this is the highest level of Division I football.<\/p>\n
\u201cSacramento State now has a pathway, not only to a bowl game, but to play for a national championship. As crazy as that sounds. A week ago, there was no pathway.\u201d<\/p>\n
That pathway has historically been narrow in the MAC, a conference that has produced one Top 25 team in the final College Football Playoff rankings since 2014. Still, it\u2019s the pathway that was available to Sac State.<\/p>\n
The school\u2019s previous efforts to land in a West Coast FBS conference \u2014 the Pac-12 or Mountain West \u2014 yielded no invitations. Independence wasn\u2019t an option since the NCAA required the Hornets to receive a conference invitation. Enter the MAC, which was attracted to Sacramento\u2019s television market, prior investments and potential to grow.<\/p>\n
Before the 2025 season, Sacramento State hired UNLV offensive coordinator Brennan Marion and paid him what was believed to be the highest salary in FCS at $750,000 a year. The program also landed former four-star quarterback Jaden Rashada from the transfer portal.<\/p>\n
The Hornets finished 7-5. Rashada was benched. He and Marion were gone by season\u2019s end. Still, Sacramento State had shown its intent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I found very intriguing,\u201d Steinbrecher said, \u201cwas here was this very large, very dynamic university \u2026 a world of possibilities and opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other side of the deal, the appeal is simple: The MAC offers national exposure to the Hornets via its television deals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be on ESPN and CBS Sports on a regular basis,\u201d Wood said. \u201cThat\u2019s the win. We won right before we\u2019ve even played a game, we won. \u2026 Nothing brings in donors, alumni, enrollment, or community engagement like athletics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The campus<\/p>\n
While Sacramento State sits in the heart of a major media market, a significant portion of the student population has historically lived off campus. According to the university\u2019s 2025 Fact Book<\/a>, 30,883 students enrolled in the 2024 fall semester, but only 3,200 of those students lived on campus.<\/p>\n The school\u2019s new policy requiring incoming first-year students to live in university housing for their first two academic years<\/a> could change that.<\/p>\n In 2025, Wood attempted to turn Hornets games into events, funding large-scale concerts with student engagement fees to draw students, corporate sponsors and alumni. Artists including Lil Yachty, Quavo and Blxst performed.<\/p>\n The resulting attendance figures \u2014 15,468 fans, according to the school \u2014 would have put the Hornets right around the middle of the pack in the MAC.<\/p>\n \u201cOur marker of success really is, can we use football and sports to generate revenue in a way that most campuses can\u2019t because of this unique situation of not having an impacted media market?\u201d Wood said. \u201cThen, second, does it raise the visibility of the university?\u201d<\/p>\n \n Herky the Hornet leads the Sacramento State football team out onto the field before a game. (Courtesy of Sacramento State Athletics)<\/p>\n The concerts stood in contrast to events the previous spring.<\/p>\n In April 2025, The State Hornet reported<\/a> that Wood announced a $37 million deficit driven by rising costs and proposed cuts from Gov. Gavin Newsom. The university eliminated or consolidated 28 management positions, including 15 layoffs, prompting student and faculty walkouts and calls for Wood to resign.<\/p>\n Wood noted that the budget is contractually allocated, and athletic funds cannot be redirected elsewhere. Faculty understand. Still, it doesn\u2019t keep Andrea Terry, an assistant professor in communications studies, from questioning institutional priorities.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand this money for athletics is coming from a different pot,\u201d Terry said. \u201cSo the question is who\u2019s putting what money in which pot? And how do we make sure that we have enough money in the instructional pot, in the maintenance pot, to make sure that we can serve our students effectively?\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/BS6_1835-1-scaled.jpeg\")
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