Process moves on with SMU, San Diego State as top targets
The Pac-12 is inching closer toward remaining a 12-school conference following the departures of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten in the summer of 2024.
The university presidents discussed SMU and San Diego State as expansion candidates during a meeting last week and approved commissioner George Kliavkoff taking the next step in the complicated process of adding membership, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting.
Sources emphasized that the approval was informal in nature — the presidents did not vote to add specific schools — but expansion is viewed as highly likely.
Kliavkoff attended an SMU basketball game on Wednesday night as part of a campus visit, according to the Dallas Morning News.
It is not known if other schools were discussed last week during the Pac12 presidents' quarterly meeting, held at Arizona State.
Expansion is part of a complicated three-step process in which the Pac-12 must negotiate a new media rights contract with network partners; the schools must agree to sign their media rights over to the conference; and invitations to new members must be extended on a formal basis.
The Pac-12 has been negotiating a new media agreement since July. Kliavkoff has said that process would come first, followed by the grant-ofrights piece and then expansion.
But the three tracks were expected to unfold concurrently, sources said, with the conference informing its media partners of expansion plans during contract negotiations and prior to issuing formal invitations.
Under Pac-12 bylaws, expansion requires a three-fourths vote of the presidents, meaning eight of the 10 schools would have to approve any new members. (USC and UCLA will not participate in expansion proceedings during their final 18 months in the conference.)
SMU and San Diego State have been obvious candidates all along. Neither would be offered full revenue shares, at least initially, according to sources. Each school is attractive to the Pac-12 for a variety of reasons, including the inventory of games they would add.
As a 10-team conference, the Pac-12 would have approximately 65 football games available to its media partners, assuming each team played nine conference games and two non-conference home games every season.
As a 12-team league, the Pac-12 would have approximately 78 games available (assuming two nonconference home games per team).
San Diego State
Location: San Diego Type: Public Undergraduate enrollment: 36,000 (approx)
Endowment: $350 million (approx)
Research level: R2 (second-highest designation)
U.S. News ranking: 151st in national universities
Media market: 1.13 million homes (per Nielsen/2021 DMA)
Conference: Mountain West
Football facts: SDSU is a founding member of the Mountain West in 1998. The Aztecs have won at least 10 games in five of the past six seasons (excluding 2020) and have regularly beaten Pac-12 opponents under coaches Rocky Long and Brady Hoke. SDSU football alumni include Marshall Faulk and Joe Gibbs. In 2022, the Aztecs opened Snapdragon Stadium, which has a capacity of 35,000 but can expand to hold 55,000.
SMU
Location: Dallas
Type: Private Undergraduate enrollment: 6,800 (approx)
Endowment: $2.0 billion (approx)
Research level: R2 (second-highest designation)
U.S. News ranking: 72nd in national universities
Media market: 2.96 million homes (per Nielsen/2021 DMA)
Conference: American Athletic
Football facts: SMU has a strong football history but is the only school to receive the death penalty from the NCAA (in the late 1980s). The list of famous football alumni includes Doak Walker, Don Meredith and Eric Dickerson. Since the collapse of the Southwest Conference, the Mustangs have been members of the WAC, Conference USA and the American. They struggled for traction but won 10 games in 2019 (under Sonny Dykes) and have been bowl-eligible for four consecutive years.