College sports’ tectonic plates shifted again Thursday morning, as another Colorado school is making a major move.
The CSU Rams announced that they’ll be joining the Pac-12 — the former conference of the CU Buffs — along with three other Mountain West Conference members on July 1, 2026.
For university president Amy Parsons, it’s a move the school has had its sights set on for more than a decade.
“In a way, we’ve been preparing for this for a long time,” Parsons told The Denver Post by phone from Canvas Stadium a few hours after the announcement. “It’s one of the things we had set out to do when we built this beautiful new football stadium.”
Almost 10 years after Canvas Stadium was approved by CSU’s board of governors and roughly seven years after it opened, the Rams’ on-campus home will soon be a part of one of the oldest, and most revered, collegiate athletic conferences in the country.
Although in doing so, the Rams will be part of another rebuild. In this case, helping to rebuild a Pac-12 brand that has been ravaged by poor business decisions and mass defections, the combination of which whittled the conference down to just two members as of last month — Oregon State and Washington State.
That rebuild will include an expansion that features four of the top athletic brands from the Mountain West: CSU, Boise State, San Diego State and Fresno State.
Those programs have combined to win 15 Mountain West football titles since that league began operations in 1999. The Rams have won or shared three of those, although none since 2002.
The Pac-12, which was founded in 1915, is the former home of USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Cal, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and the CU Buffs. All 10 left the conference this past summer, citing concerns over league stability as well as the opportunity for greater financial opportunities with other conferences.
“Obviously, the Pac-12 has incredible brand recognition and history in this country for more than 100 years of history,” Parsons said. “So it’s a storied brand in athletics. And I think anybody would be proud to be a part of the Pac-12.”
The Rams, whose football program hosts rival CU in the Rocky Mountain Showdown for the first time at Canvas Stadium on Saturday, are a founding member of the Mountain West Conference.
Parsons said CSU received a formal invitation from the Pac-12 earlier this week and signed a contract with the league on Wednesday. By accepting that invite, the Rams will gain association with what the athletic department has long sought — membership within a “power” conference.
But such a move is not without costs, both in terms of finances and tradition. CSU must reportedly pay the Mountain West an exit fee of $17 million for departing the league, as well as other financial penalties that could reportedly add up to as much as $28 million to $29 million per departing school.
Parsons told The Post she believes the Pac-12 will assist in defraying those costs, and that specific terms of departure will be negotiated in the coming months. Oklahoma and Texas were estimated to incur $160 million in penalties for departing the Big 12 for the SEC, according to USA Today, but reportedly agreed to pay out $100 million instead.
The CSU president added that the Rams are an equal financial partner with the other five schools that currently comprise the Pac-12.
With Wyoming and Air Force not included in the first wave of expansion, CSU appears to be leaving behind two of its long-standing rivals as part of this move. Weber told The Post that CSU will look to maintain those rivalries through non-conference scheduling.
The Pac-12 has historically been the most prestigious collegiate league west of the Central time zone. However, that prestige, and indeed its membership, were crippled by the defections of CU, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State to the Big 12; USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten; and Stanford and Cal to the ACC.
Washington State and Oregon State were left with the conference’s holdings, trademarks and media rights. They believe they can rebuild the brand with the likes of the Rams, Aztecs, Broncos and Bulldogs as peers. The NCAA requires a minimum of eight schools to qualify as an FBS conference, so it’s clear the conference is not done looking for new members.
Parsons told The Post she wasn’t aware of a specific Pac-12 timetable for further expansion, but that “we know there are other schools that are interested in the league and we expect others (beyond them) will be interested as well.”
CSU football plays at Oregon State on Oct. 5 as part of a scheduling alliance between the MW and the remains of the Pac-12, a partnership that Yahoo Sports reports will not continue for a second fall.
The primary motivations for CSU are the same reasons CU left the Pac-12 this past summer — access to the College Football Playoff, money and stability.
While the mass departures from the Pac-12 would denounce the latter, Yahoo Sports reports that the remaining Pac-12 members feel a new-look league would reach a media rights agreement worth more than the current or expected payouts presented to MW members.
The Mountain West has a $270 million television contract with CBS and Fox that runs through 2026.
Published reports have estimated that non-Boise members of the MW, including CSU, receive roughly $3.5 million annually from that deal, with the Broncos receiving an additional $1.8 million per year.
CSU noted in its financial report to the NCAA for the 2022-23 fiscal year, the most recent public report available,
The Yahoo Sports report infers that the Rams could also have access to Pac-12 assets such as “monies from the Rose Bowl contract, College Football Playoff, NCAA basketball tournament units and Pac-12 Enterprises, previously the Pac-12 Network.”
CSU indicated in its announcement Thursday morning that the four new schools “will have immediate voting privileges” within the conference.
The two-team Pac-12 recently lost its status as a Power 5/”autonomous” conference within the CFP — and it’s not clear whether supplementing the expanded league with Group of 5 programs would restore those privileges.
CSU athletics reported revenues of $64.3 million to the NCAA for the 2022-23 fiscal year this past January. The Rams’ revenues of $61.2 million, per a USA Today database, Wazzu and Oregon State had revenues of $85 million and $83.5 million in ’21-22, respectively.
