Numbers don’t lie: Sac State’s $15M football quest would short academics | Opinion
If a budget is an expression of an institution’s values, Sacramento State now prioritizes athletics over academics.
Consider how in 2024, Sacramento State spent $7.2 million on its football program, according to university records. Ticket revenues covered less than 4% of the costs, a total of $275,149. To help boost attendance for the 2025 season, the university spent $617,405 on after-game rap concerts.
Now there is word that Sac State President Luke Wood could spend upwards of $15 million simply to join a football conference in the college game’s highest echelon, the Football Bowl Subdivision. In the fast-shifting modern college football scene, never has a public university in California, nor any state university for that matter, bought its way into a conference.
As recently reported by my colleague LeBron Hill, the operating funds for academic affairs have gone up 1% while spending on athletics has increased by 120% since Wood’s arrival in summer 2023.
If Wood consummates a move to the FBS, athletic expenses will skyrocket even more.
Additionally, Sac State spending millions to join a football conference — in this case reportedly the Mid-American Conference — would be an unprecedented policy decision of the highest order. You’d think CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia and her bosses on the CSU Board of Trustees would be publicly involved in this field of play.
Instead, they don’t even appear to be in the stadium.
How big-time college football just got more expensive
The financial extraction machine known as college football has just skyrocketed the price of admission for second-division teams like Sacramento State with big league dreams.
The world recently changed when the college football team from Fargo, North Dakota, decided to buy its way into the FBS to move up from the lower tier, called the Football Championship Subdivision, that is now occupied by Sacramento State, UC Davis and dozens of other so-called “mid-major” NCAA Division I schools. The North Dakota State Bisons will reportedly pay $12.5 million to join the Mountain West Conference, home of teams such as San Jose State University.
Under previous pay-to-play rules, FCS teams “only” had to pay a $5 million entrance fee into the FBS to the sports’ umbrella organization, the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Now it appears that new and bigger fees are proliferating down to the conference level.
Wood declined a request to speak to me for an interview on this topic. But in a previous exchange with The Bee’s Joe Davidson, he believes big-time college football is worth the ever-rising price of admission.
Wood would not comment to Davidson on a previous media report that Sacramento State was offering $10 million in exchange for an invitation to a football conference.
And therein lies the problem facing the CSU: In a public university system supported by public money, it’s publicly unclear how Sacramento State can afford this.
“That would be 1,000% a goal,” Wood said of joining the FBS. “We plan to play in the FBS in 2026,” he said.
Sac State’s math doesn’t add up
At successful big-level football programs, fan support is a powerful financial fuel. At the last CSU campus to build a new football stadium, San Diego State, for example, stadium revenues were sufficient to pay off $200 million in bonds that trustees approved in March 2020.
The trustees had years of evidence of fan support for the Aztecs to be assured that the university system wouldn’t somehow get stuck with the tab. The plan called for no student fees to pay off this debt.
Meanwhile, at Sacramento State, it would take roughly 54 years of football ticket revenues, based on 2024 levels, simply to pay the estimated entrance fees into the FBS. There are no published revenue numbers yet for the 2025 season, when the university paid for those rap concerts to lure more fans. Of that $617,405 in spending, the most went to Lil Yachty, whose Oct. 18 post-game performance was cut short due to crowd and sound problems.
Missing: Alums cutting big checks
North Dakota State can afford what it’s doing because it has fans who are cutting the big checks. Unlike Sacramento State, the Bison have won the FCS championship, no less than 10 times in the last 15 years.
The modest football ticket revenues at Sacramento State reflect how public attention has been focused elsewhere. If Wood has secretly secured millions from wealthy lovers of the Hornets, what a waste to spend it on a football conference entrance fee rather than to continue advancing the much-ballyhooed idea of a downtown Sac State campus.
Although Wood claimed to Davidson that the football team would play in the FBS this season, athletics director Mark Orr has scheduled only one game against an FBS opponent and seven against FCS teams from as far away as Maine. FBS teams typically plan only one FCS opponent, if that. Wood’s words simply don’t match Orr’s actions, only adding to the mystery.
There is chatter in the football-sphere that Sac State is eyeing an FBS conference whose closest team is in Michigan, an absurd geographic fit. Care for a new rivalry with Bowling Green, anyone?
The Mid-American Conference schedules games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, for television reasons.
So much for the football team attending classes. It’s a perfect fit for the new Sacramento State. Academics, after all, are second in priority to athletics.
This story was originally published February 13, 2026 at 3:45 PM.