The Mid-American Conference has announced that Sacramento State will join as a football-only member for the 2026 season—an arrangement that will extend for five years.
The deal is an expensive one for the Hornets, which are expected to pay a roughly $18 million entrance fee. They also will owe the NCAA $5 million for their official application to transition from the FCS to FBS level. Sacramento State has forfeited all annual conference distributions for the next five years, according to a Yahoo! Sports report.
It’s a deal that’s becoming more and more common as top FCS programs clamor to make the jump; just last week, North Dakota State signed a multimillion-dollar deal to join the Mountain West.
On Monday, Sacramento State president, Dr. Luke Wood said the entrance fee would be paid by “game guarantees and other football revenue,” and not student fees or the Sacramento State general fund.
Sacramento State has been pushing to make the jump to the FBS level since July 2023, when Wood took over as Sacramento State president. The public campaign for the move began during a wave of conference realignment in Fall 2024. At the time, the Pac-12 initiated its rebuild by announcing it would add five Mountain West members, and the Hornets saw the shakeup as an opportunity.
FOS first reported the formation of the “Sac-12,” a group of local politicians and businesspeople pooling financial resources to win the program an invitation to the Pac-12; they committed to offer $50 million in NIL (name, image, and likeness) opportunities to Sacramento State athletes if the program secured a Pac-12 invitation. Though the group was independent of the university and athletics department, it reflected the same aggressive desire to make it to the next level.
Around the same time, Wood and the Hornets made several moves of their own. The school announced a multimillion-dollar stadium renovation project to get the capacity up to 25,000, as well as a partnership for the men’s and women’s basketball programs to play conference home games in Golden 1 Center, home of the Sacramento Kings, if the program was elevated to the FBS level.
Sacramento State has also made several flashy hires along the way: The men’s basketball program is led by former NBA star Mike Bibby; Shaquille O’Neal serves as a “voluntary” GM. Last year’s football program featured several well-known FBS football players, including quarterback Jaden Rashada. After the 2025 season concluded, the Hornets hired Alonzo Carter to lead the program.
The road hasn’t been easy. The Hornets failed to secure an FBS invitation in fall 2024. In 2025, they decided to apply to make the jump on their own to become an FBS independent. Also last year, the program also made the move from the Big Sky to the Big West, which does not sponsor football. The NCAA rejected the bid to become an FBS independent. But the Hornets didn’t give up.
The MAC, which added UMass last year and will lose Northern Illinois this year, took up the Hornets on their aggressive pitch that included not only a multimillion-dollar entrance fee, but also forgoing some annual conference distributions, a plan similar to the one SMU made to get into the ACC.
It’s never been more expensive to succeed at the FBS level. The program has already opted into revenue-sharing, and is expected to continue that in the MAC—though it’s unclear if Sacramento State will offer the full revenue-sharing amount. In addition, the NIL opportunities offered by the Sac-12 group were contingent upon a Pac-12 invitation, so they may not materialize. However, a source told FOS the school was confident in its current NIL position.
“This is bigger than football,” Wood said in a statement Monday. “It’s about opportunity, visibility, and momentum. It’s about attracting the next generation of students, fueling enrollment and innovation, and building partnerships that will transform Sacramento State for decades to come.”
