The new Pac-12 has found its primary media partner.
Now, it’s time to finalize the next member school.
The league is extending its deal with CBS Sports through the 2030-31 season as the anchor media platform of the new conference, paving the way for the next phase of the Pac-12’s rebirth: expansion.
Conference officials have engaged in conversations with executives at Texas State, sources tell Yahoo Sports, as the two parties work toward a membership agreement that would start in the fall of 2026. While no deal is finalized, this months-long courtship is expected to reach a crescendo this week, when the formal extension of an invitation may be made.
The addition of Texas State, a Sun Belt school located in San Marcos, Texas, would give the Pac-12 a necessary eighth full, football-playing member — a requirement by the NCAA of all FBS leagues. The expansion would be the latest move of a phased-in rebuilding of a conference that, in 2023, was left with just Washington State and Oregon State. The Pac-12 added five programs from the Mountain West (San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State) and added basketball power Gonzaga as well before entering negotiations this spring with multiple media partners for a new television deal.
CBS will anchor the league’s multi-platform media package with as many as four partners expected at a later date. The total value of that package remains unclear, though the final annual per-school figure is expected to fall toward the lower range of a projection that the conference showed expansion targets last year ($8-15 million).
Texas State’s potential departure from the Sun Belt — if a deal is reached — is expected to set off a chain of realignment moves within the Group of Six conferences. Officials in the Sun Belt, in fact, have already held internal discussion over potential expansion targets in Conference USA, most notably Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky, according to those familiar with the talks.
(Sam Hodde via Getty Images)
Time is of the essence for any of these conference moves.
Most programs must give their current conference at least 12 months of notice before any planned exit or risk a larger exit fee. For instance, Texas State’s Sun Belt exit fee is $5 million if the school gives the conference notice before July 1 that it is leaving in July of 2026. That figure doubles in seven days.
The exit fee for Conference USA programs is expected to be more than $5 million and as much as $10 million, as it includes two years worth of withheld revenue distribution and a penalty for breaking the league’s grant-of-rights agreement. There is a $5 million entry fee into the Sun Belt — a figure that could be negotiated down at the discretion of the league’s board of presidents.
If Texas State is offered a Pac-12 invitation at a full distribution, the school is expected to accept.
For Texas State, the move would be a dramatic increase in conference revenue to its coffers, more than doubling the Sun Belt’s payout at a time when schools are clawing for any new financial help as the industry enters the age of athlete revenue sharing. The Bobcats, 12-year members of the Sun Belt after starting the transition from FCS in 2011, have a history of football success at the lower levels. They won Division II national titles in 1981-82 and advanced to the FCS semifinals in 2005.
The move would give the Pac-12 a foothold in the country’s second-most populous state. The new Pac-12 has two schools in the most populous state, California.
Whether the Pac-12 would extend an invitation to any other program remains unclear. Last year, the league offered term sheets to at least three schools in the American, all of whom rebuffed the offer: Memphis, Tulane and South Florida. Exiting the American comes with a penalty of as much as $20 million.
Poaching other Mountain West programs, such as UNLV, is a high hurdle, too. Members of the remade Mountain West agreed to a binding grant of rights. To replace those departing to the Pac-12, the league added Hawaii, UTEP, Grand Canyon, Northern Illinois in football and UC Davis in all sports except football.
The Mountain West and Pac-12, considered for years as western sister conferences, are mired in a legal dispute over exit and penalty fees over the departure of the five schools to the Pac-12. The two conferences held mediation several weeks ago. Those negotiations continue over more than $150 million in exit and penalty fees that the Mountain West believes the Pac-12 and its new five members owe.
The Pac-12, being remade under the leadership of commissioner Teresa Gould, holds an interesting place in the college sports hierarchy. While the conference lost its autonomous status as a power league within both the NCAA and College Football Playoff governing structures, the conference remains involved in landmark changes within college sports related to the House antitrust settlement.
The Pac-12, as well as the NCAA, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC, are named defendants in the lawsuit that is ushering into the industry revenue sharing with athletes. League administrators, in fact, are scheduled to visit lawmakers this week in Washington, D.C., as industry executives continue lobbying for a federal college sports bill.
The Pac-12’s deal with CBS extends a one-year agreement struck earlier this year for the network to televise two football games: the Apple Cup on Sept. 20 and the first of two matchups between Washington State and Oregon State on Nov. 1.
As part of the CBS package, the network will broadcast the league’s football championship game and men’s basketball tournament championship game, as well as at least three regular-season football and men’s basketball games on CBS and Paramount+. More regular-season games are expected on CBS Sports Network. Full details of the agreement are not being disclosed as the league is still in the market to finalize media rights deals for more football, basketball and Olympic sports broadcasts with other partners.
The conference is using Octagon as an adviser as it seeks more media agreements.
