Sacramento State football to join FBS conference, reportedly paying $20M+ in fees
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.
Sacramento State would replace Northern Illinois, which is moving to the Mountain West Conference, as the MAC’s 13th football program.
The other 12 are Western Michigan, Ohio, Toledo, Miami (Ohio), Central Michigan, Akron, Buffalo, Kent State, Ball State, Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green and Massachusetts.
Full college football season schedules are generally posted by March at the latest.
What would FBS move mean?
In addition to a higher level of prestige, FBS-level universities generate more revenue via lucrative TV deals than their FCS counterparts. They are also eligible for end-of-season Bowl games and the College Football Playoff tournament culminating in the national championship.
Sacramento State football in the past several seasons has grown into one of the most successful programs within the FCS. Sac State joined the Big Sky Conference in 1996 and, under coach Troy Taylor, won three Big Sky championships from 2019 to 2022.
Taylor’s successor, Andy Thompson, led the Hornets back to the FCS playoffs in his first season as head coach in 2023.
Brennan Marion in his single season with the Hornets in 2025 guided the team to a seven-win season, the program falling just short of reaching the FCS playoffs for the fifth time in seven seasons.
Sac State in December hired Alonzo Carter as head coach. Carter prior to helming the Hornets served as assistant head coach and running backs coach for the Arizona Wildcats of the FBS-level Big 12.
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.
This story was originally published February 14, 2026 at 8:14 PM.
