Pen is to paper. Announcement this week.

Just spill the beans. No one reads this other than hyper involved alumnae.

For all sports or just football?

Football only.

so the idea is pay $15M or so and forego conference money from TV?

Yes, $5M to jump to FBS, and $10M to MAC (to be paid out over 5 years, I believe). No conference money from TV for first two years. I believe that's what's on the table. Thought Friday would be possibility of announcement. But everyone I talk to expects an NDSU style leak fest over the weekend, then an official announcement next week.

MAC teams make $800k-$1M/year in media rights deals for football only. Big Sky teams are getting in the 10s of thousands per year right now.

Pen is to paper. — Kadeezy

Others might characterize as crayon to coloring book. But to each their own. This is the equivalent of financing a used Saturn at a West Jefferson car lot. It might get you where you want to go. Or not.

MAC attendance figures are helped by the fact they are close to each other and can easily travel to away games. Sac’s closest conference rival would be Ball State. The Causeway or even Sac-Poly are bigger attendance draws than Sac-Akron or Toledo or Kent State. $15M upfront, plus stadium upgrades, to get $1M per year is a massive gamble.

We were 9th in FCS attendance last year without hosting the Causeway. Our 2025 numbers would place us 6th in the MAC. Getting a 2 for 1 with regional FBS opponents will be possible with FBS status. SJSU, Fresno, and San Diego State will fill the stadium more than Cal Poly or any other BSC school, besides maybe Davis.

Yeah I don't really worry about Sac attendance, I just don't see the draw of MAC schools to be close to playing Mountain West or Pac12 schools. Talking about filling the stadium by playing all these west coast schools is just NOT the reality of what is gonna happen if Sac joins the MAC. I think if Sac is putting up a good season the potential for bowl games, etc will draw well, but the MAC seems like a hard conference to draw fans to considering the conference schools are so far away and not super recognizable to those on the west coast.

It's all about a foot in the door at this point. Before a 5 or 10 year moratorium on new FBS schools hits.

Makes sense. I hope it works out, I really do wish in a perfect world sac and davis would be in the MW together. I worry about the Sac admin's spending and broken/constantly changing goalposts but also think forward looking isnt the worst thing. Its all a bit of a gamble right now, but the position of bein an already established FBS school in future realignment seems like a no brainer. I worry about a g6 split that shuts out FCS members (and hope Davis is already in the MW if that happens).

MAC is an ugly conference top to bottom. Things must be pretty desperate to be begging into this. Zero regional conference matchups. That might be the worst part (along with potential Tuesday night games).
I'm not sure I'm buying the moratorium bit. Seems to be coping for Sac ending up in the worse possible FBS conference on their wish list - the last option basically.

How will Sac's attendance be on Tuesdays?

You drew great numbers against regional opponents with fan bases that will travel to watch. You will not have this in the MAC. Montana brings way more people to a game than Bowling Green or Toledo ever will. In NorCal almost all Big Sky teams have greater name recognition than any MAC school. Nobody outside of Upper Michigan and Ohio are drawn to see these teams.
I honestly wish you luck, but Woods took any move to FBS vs waiting for the right move.

MAC TEAMS PLAY ONE TUESDAY NIGHT GAME PER YEAR! And it'll only be at home every other year. And on ESPN.

it could be the MAC is desperate:

https://www.wtol.com/article/sports/local-sports/toledo-mac-football-attendance-financial-impact/512-7e89288c-8e89-4e4b-b4eb-9051d4ab609a

Who knew UMASS was in the MAC?

Yikes. Hard pass.

Yahoo Sports: FCS program Sacramento State has been voted into the MAC as a football-only member starting in 2026, per Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger.

The Hornets will pay a fee of $18 million to join the conference.

Where does the $18 million come from when all the Cal State Universities are facing budget problems?

It will be interesting to see the real number as $18M is insanely and seemingly unrealistically high. Originally they were talking $10M.

Channel 3 KCRA News reported tonight that the cost for Sac State to join the MAC is "expected to be $23 million."

Excerpts from the Sacramento Bee:

Sacramento State’s football program will reportedly move up to the FBS level of play this coming season, and will pay upward of $20 million in entrance fees to do so.

The Mid-American Conference will add Sac State as a football-only school following a vote by the conference’s presidents, ESPN’s Pete Thamel first reported and two people with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed Saturday to The Sacramento Bee. An official announcement of the deal is expected in the coming days.

ESPN reported the expected entrance fee to the MAC at $18 million, on top of a $5 million fee to the NCAA to move from the Football Conference Subdivision of Division I football, or FCS, to the higher-level Football Bowl Subdivision, FBS.

Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported earlier this month that the MAC was exploring the possibility of adding Sacramento State and that the university had offered “upwards of $10 million” in proposed entry fees to other FBS-level conferences and, that Sac State’s had surpassed $15 million.

University President Luke Wood, one week earlier in an interview with The Bee, said Sacramento State “plan(s) to play in the FBS in 2026” but declined to speak on specific dollar figures or conferences.

Sacramento State, at the end of the current academic year, is departing the Big Sky Conference. The university announced last June that all major sports would be moving to the Big West Conference, which does not field a football program, after this summer.

The university last summer requested a waiver to move up to the FBS as an independent — without any conference affiliation. The NCAA denied that request.

North Dakota State last week announced its own move from the Missouri Valley Football Conference, an FCS league, to the FBS-level Mountain West. North Dakota State is paying $12.5 million to the Mountain West as its entry fee, ESPN’s Thamel reported.

Moving to the MAC specifically would present logistical challenges, as Sacramento State would be the MAC’s only West Coast team, with more than half its universities in Michigan or Ohio.

Wood, an alumnus, took over as university president in July 2023 and has championed the sought-after promotion to FBS-level football as a boost to the entire university. Critics including Sacramento State students have at times characterized Wood as focused too closely on university athletics at the expense of academics, while Wood has repeatedly touted FBS promotion as a worthwhile investment.

Is Cal Expo stadium still on track?

With an FBS conference invitation reportedly secured, the next order of business would be to determine where the Hornets will play in 2026.

In fall 2024, Sac State announced plans to open a new, 25,000-seat football stadium on-campus. Last August, Cal Expo and Sacramento State announced they were exploring a plan that would instead see Cal Expo’s defunct horse racing track and grand stand transformed into the Hornets’ new football stadium as early as 2026.

Wood in a post to X on Wednesday said the Cal Expo stadium plan remains on track for the coming football season.

“Everything is moving forward as planned. Most analyses are now done. Looking forward to a future football stadium. The future is bright for Sac State!” he wrote. “We are readying our current stadium to be ready for FBS ambitions until new stadium is on line.”

The agreement between Cal Expo and Sacramento State last week was for an exclusive negotiating window, with few details publicly released since then.

Cal Expo hosted its first-ever football game, the 52nd annual Pig Bowl, in late January. That charity game between law enforcement and firefighters took the field at Heart Health Park, home to the Republic FC soccer club that is planning its own move to a new stadium being built at the downtown Railyards development.

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/sports/college/article314706848.html#storylink=cpy

So Sac will fly east 5x a season?