2026 will be a big year for the West Coast, as the PAC-12 Conference return to college sports becomes official on July 1. The league boasts nine members for the first year, “with room for more”. Despite the hype around the conference’s return, it might not matter, as it’s far from being nationally relevant. The new PAC-12 doesn’t have a true blue-blood program or an attractive media deal to entice big-time schools. At least when Texas and Oklahoma left the Big 12, the league could lean on Texas Tech for national recognition. That team doesn’t exist for the West Coast conference, which will need hard work to become more than a Mountain West 2.0.
Why The PAC-12 Conference Return Won’t Matter
The first hurdle on the PAC-12’s path to prominence is the lack of marquee match-ups. The league only has eight schools for all sports: Oregon State, Washington State, Colorado State, Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State, and Texas State. Outside of the California programs, there isn’t a rivalry game in the conference, which is terrible for visibility. Gonzaga also joins the PAC-12 in 2026, but that addition isn’t relevant until basketball season. While there are some big games in the non-conference slate (Boise State at Oregon, the Apple Cup between Washington State and Washington), the lack of must-see matchups hurts the viability of the league in the short-term.
What further complicates things is the PAC-12’s media deal, which is for five years with USA Network, CBS Sports, and the CW. The anticipated annual earnings for schools range from $7 million to $10 million, a bounty for the programs coming from the Mountain West. For comparison, Big Ten schools rake in between $60 million and $80 million annually from their media deal. This is where not having a true blue-blood program hurts the most. The PAC-12 isn’t attractive enough to networks or other programs without having at least one program that moves the needle. Boise State could grow into that role, but it’ll be hard to get there without meaningful games and limited exposure.
That media money covers NIL deals that allow teams to be competitive. As it stands, they can’t spend like the Big Ten (which has dominated the NIL era) or the SEC, so it’ll be years before a PAC-12 team is nationally relevant again. The most realistic goal for the conference is to get a team to a high-profile bowl. The College Football Playoff is not a possibility due to a weaker strength of schedule for whoever wins the league.
It’s hard to imagine what the future of the new PAC-12 will look like. The conference needs one more all-sports member, but where is that member going to come from? Memphis, Tulane, and South Florida all declared they weren’t interested in the league in 2024, and that’s not likely to change. It doesn’t help that there aren’t viable options in its geographic footprint that make the conference better. Florida State and Clemson leaving the ACC would be the best-case scenario for the PAC-12, opening the door for former PAC-12 members Cal and Stanford to return. Hope is not a plan, however, and it seems that a return to glory for the West Coast league is in the distant future.
