It's been rumored for months (perhaps years). Now it may finally be happening.
San Diego State is expected to leave the Mountain West Conference and join the Pac-12 Conference. On his national radio show on Monday, Dan Patrick said he's been told an announcement could come as early as this week. SDSU is not ready to make anything official. Yet.
"We don't have any comment regarding any conference realignment speculation," said the Aztecs in a statement to NBC 7.
However, this move seems like it's reached the point of inevitability.
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SDSU and the Pac-12 have been talking about a move for a while and, according to sources, in recent weeks those talks have intensified. The Pac-12 knows it's losing USC to the Big 10. It's very likely to also be losing UCLA. The University of California Board of Regents has threatened to block the Bruins from leaving and has a meeting in mid-November where it could vote to do just that but their protestations are seen as mere saber-rattling.
So, their first choice to fill at least one hole is the Aztecs, which makes sense on multiple levels. San Diego State already has programs playing in the conference. Their men's soccer team has been a member for a few years and their women's lacrosse team started in 2022. If (when) both the Trojans and Bruins join the Big 10 then adding the Aztecs keeps the Pac-12's presence in Southern California.
The implications for SDSU are immense. First of all, they go from a mid-major conference to a Power-5 conference. That means they'll have a legitimate chance every year of going to the College Football Playoff and almost guarantee the highly successful men's basketball program that already makes annual trips to the NCAA Tournament a higher seed when it does make the field of 68.
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The status of playing in a major conference will also help recruiting, likely swaying more of the local talent San Diego County produces to stay home instead of going to Oregon or Michigan.
And we haven't even talked about the most important thing: money.
In their Mountain West Conference media rights deal the Aztecs get about $3.5 million a year. The Pac-12 is working on a new media rights deal that's expected to net each member institution around $28 million annually, and that number is expected to go up because Amazon and Apple are expressing interest in adding the Pac-12 to their live streaming platforms. If one of them sign on and you take into consideration the payouts from the CFP and March Madness, the Aztecs could be pulling in north of $40 million a year, a tenfold increase over where they are now.
The time table for a move is not clear but USC and UCLA should be in the Big 10 by 2024 so that would be the most likely scenario for SDSU to make their move.
Even if the move is not made official is not made this week (and it's likely the Pac-12 secures its media rights deal before making any major announcements), the Aztecs joining Power-5 world is feeling more and more like a "when" than an "if."
