Sources: Pac-12 in talks with Texas State over membership after extension of CBS Sports activities media deal

[ad_1] The brand new Pac-12 has discovered its main media associate.

Now, it’s time to finalize the subsequent member college.

The league is extending its cope with CBS Sports activities by the 2030-31 season because the anchor media platform of the brand new convention, paving the way in which for the subsequent part of the Pac-12’s rebirth: growth.

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Convention officers have engaged in conversations with executives at Texas State, sources inform Yahoo Sports activities, as the 2 events work towards a membership settlement that will begin in fall of 2026. Whereas no deal is finalized, this months-long courtship is anticipated to succeed in a crescendo this week, when the formal extension of an invite could also be made.

The addition of Texas State, a Solar Belt college situated in San Marcos, Texas, would give the Pac-12 a mandatory eighth full, football-playing member — a requirement by the NCAA of all FBS leagues. The growth can be the newest transfer of a phased-in rebuilding of a convention that, in 2023, was left with simply Washington State and Oregon State. The Pac-12 added 5 applications from the Mountain West (San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State) and added basketball energy Gonzaga as properly earlier than getting into negotiations this spring with a number of media companions for a brand new tv deal.

CBS will anchor the league’s multi-platform media bundle with as many as 4 companions anticipated at a later date. The entire worth of that bundle stays unclear, although the ultimate annual per-school determine is anticipated to fall towards the decrease vary of a projection that the convention confirmed growth targets final 12 months ($8-15 million).

Texas State’s potential departure from the Solar Belt — if a deal is reached — is anticipated to set off a sequence of realignment strikes throughout the Group of Six conferences. Officers within the Solar Belt, actually, have already held inner dialogue over potential growth targets in Convention USA, most notably Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky, in keeping with these aware of the talks.

<img alt="DALLAS, TEXAS - JANUARY 03: Head coach GJ Kinne of the Texas State Bobcats lifts the trophy and celebrates with Kalil Alexander #22 after defeating the North Texas Mean Green in the sfr at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on January 03, 2025 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)" loading="lazy" width="960" height="640" decoding="async" data-nimg="1" class="standard-img" style="color:transparent" src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/BlTD7Kl0Ck1aUzMM4buZiw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MDtjZj13ZWJw/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2025-06/e3ed07e0-503b-11f0-a5dc-82d8c120abcd"/> Head coach G.J. Kinne and the Texas State Bobcats received the First Responder Bowl in a sport in opposition to North Texas final season. (Sam Hodde/Getty Photos)

(Sam Hodde through Getty Photos) Time is of the essence for any of those convention strikes.

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Most applications should give their present convention not less than 12 months of discover earlier than any deliberate exit or danger a bigger exit price. As an example, Texas State’s Solar Belt exit price is $5 million if the varsity provides the convention discover earlier than July 1 that it's leaving in July of 2026. That determine doubles in seven days.

The exit price for Convention USA applications is anticipated to be within the $5-7 million vary, because it contains two years value of withheld income distribution and a penalty for breaking the league’s grant-of-rights settlement. There's a $5 million entry price into the Solar Belt — a determine that could possibly be negotiated down on the discretion of the league’s board of presidents.

If Texas State is obtainable a Pac-12 invitation at a full distribution, the varsity is anticipated to just accept.

For Texas State, the transfer can be a dramatic improve in convention income to its coffers, greater than doubling the Solar Belt’s payout at a time when colleges are clawing for any new monetary assist because the business enters the age of athlete income sharing. The Bobcats, 12-year members of the Solar Belt after beginning the transition from FCS in 2011, have a historical past of soccer success on the decrease ranges. They received Division II nationwide titles in 1981-82 and superior to the FCS semifinals in 2005.

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The transfer would give the Pac-12 a foothold within the nation’s second-most populous state. The brand new Pac-12 has two colleges in probably the most populous state, California.

Whether or not the Pac-12 would lengthen an invite to another program stays unclear. Final 12 months, the league supplied time period sheets to not less than three colleges within the American, all of whom rebuffed the provide: Memphis, Tulane and South Florida. Exiting the American comes with a penalty of as a lot as $20 million.

Poaching different Mountain West applications, resembling UNLV, is a excessive hurdle, too. Members of the remade Mountain West agreed to a binding grant of rights. To exchange these departing to the Pac-12, the league added Hawaii, UTEP, Grand Canyon, Northern Illinois in soccer and UC Davis in all sports activities besides soccer.

The Mountain West and Pac-12, thought-about for years as western sister conferences, are mired in a authorized dispute over exit and penalty charges over the departure of the 5 colleges to the Pac-12. The 2 conferences held mediation a number of weeks in the past. These negotiations proceed over greater than $150 million in exit and penalty charges that the Mountain West believes the Pac-12 and its new 5 members owe.

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The Pac-12, being remade underneath the management of commissioner Teresa Gould, holds an attention-grabbing place within the school sports activities hierarchy. Whereas the convention misplaced its autonomous standing as an influence league inside each the NCAA and School Soccer Playoff governing constructions, the convention stays concerned in landmark modifications inside school sports activities associated to the Home antitrust settlement.

The Pac-12, in addition to the NCAA, Massive Ten, SEC, Massive 12 and ACC, are named defendants within the lawsuit that's ushering into the business income sharing with athletes. League directors, actually, are scheduled to go to lawmakers this week in Washington D.C. as business executives proceed lobbying for a federal school sports activities invoice.

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The Pac-12’s cope with CBS extends a one-year settlement struck earlier this 12 months for the community to televise two soccer video games: the Apple Cup on Sept. 20 and the primary of two matchups between Washington State and Oregon State on Nov. 1.

As a part of the CBS bundle, the community will broadcast the league’s soccer championship sport and males’s basketball match championship sport in addition to not less than three common season soccer and males’s basketball video games on CBS and Paramount+. Extra common season video games are anticipated on CBS Sports activities Community. Full particulars of the settlement are usually not being disclosed because the league remains to be out there to finalize media rights offers for extra soccer, basketball and Olympic sports activities broadcasts with different companions.