The start of a new year regularly brings hope and excitement for fresh starts and new beginnings. For San Diego State University athletics fans, 2026 arrives with the exciting launch of a newly imagined conference. But this year presents some concerning developments about the state of college sports as a whole and the ability of SDSU to compete nationally more specifically.
Let’s take a look at three potential 2026 storylines for fans of the men and women student-athletes from Montezuma Mesa.
Pac-12 At last
The biggest and most talked-about item for Aztecs athletics this year will be the long-awaited arrival of membership in the Pac-12.
Relaunching in July, the new conference will consist of the Aztecs, holdovers Oregon State and Washington State, fellow MWC ex-pats Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State, and Utah State, and newcomers Texas State in all sports and Gonzaga for everything but football.
Granted, it’s not the Pac-12 of old with those LA rivals USC and UCLA casting their shadow down south or the powerhouses way up north in Oregon and Washington. But the new conference affiliation certainly bests the Mountain West in ways too numerous to mention. But let’s spotlight two.
The Pac-12 (v5.0 if you count Pac-8, Pac-10, Pac-12, Pac-12 with only two teams, and the upcoming version) will see less arduous travel for all teams and enhanced visibility across the two major sports. The soon-to-be conference announced its television contract for football and men’s basketball in November.
The conference has partnered with CBS, The CW, and USA Network. No, it’s not the ESPN promo machine, but it is a step in the right direction.
With the deal, it appears all Pac-12 football games will air on broadcast or cable television, with no streaming needed. For fans of a certain generation, that is welcome news.
As for men’s basketball, USA Network will be the place for the majority of Pac-12 hoops. The network plans to televise 50 games each season. The CW will air 35 games, with big-boy CBS on the hook for three conference games each year, including the tournament championship.
While just recently confirmed, MWC teams will also see broadcast revenues increase slightly from their present affiliation.
SDSU is well positioned to have immediate success in its new conference surroundings. The Press Democrat published its final hypothetical football power rankings for members of the newly established Pac-12 at the end of the 2025 season. The Aztecs checked in at No. 2, right behind the Broncos of the potato state. The final rankings were:
1 – Boise State
2 – San Diego State
3 – Washington State
4 – Fresno State
5 – Utah State
6 – Texas State
7 – Oregon State
8 – Colorado State
Depending on what each team does in the transfer portal and recruiting circles, this has the makings of a competitive conference up and down the membership roster. Even Colorado State, the lowest-ranked squad, made a major move to prepare for the uptick in competition by hiring a proven leader in Jim Mora Jr. to take over as head coach.
As for men’s basketball, San Diego State will rank in the top portion of the new conference. Gonzaga remains the class of the incoming conference foes, with current MWC mates Utah State and Boise State making it a competitive top four. The other teams in the new Pac-12 have work to do to shape this into the best non–Power 4 league out there.
Still, based on the fact there are no scheduled trips to the altitude in Wyoming or the infamous Pit in New Mexico, SDSU has a more level playing field for conference road games.
Revenue Sharing; Name, Image, and Likeness.
On the surface, it makes complete sense that student-athletes need to be compensated for the revenue those playing in the money-making sports bring to the university. It was cool to see students’ faces on T-shirts and hats, knowing some of the proceeds were headed back to the student-athlete directly.
Sons of Montezuma jumped at the opportunity to partner with Aztecs in several sports to market their name, image, and likeness. It helped build community within Aztec Nation, seeing these shirts at tailgate parties and in the stands.
But now? With student-athletes being paid revenue through university avenues, things have gone completely off the rails.
At the Power 4 conferences, one-year contracts are approaching the eight-figure range for top-flight talent, if rumors are to be believed. Seriously? Some college student is going to soon be receiving $10 million to play one season of a “non-professional” sport. The day will be here before you know it. Trust that.
Fantastic news for the student-athletes, especially at the well-resourced campuses. Not so much for the fans.
As season ticket holders, we’re already feeling the pinch of rising ticket prices, mandatory donations to the athletic department, insane parking fees, and outrageous concession prices. And now we hear we need to reach deep down in our pockets and pull out more cash for funds to keep our favorite players in the Red and Black.
Kudos to the CEO of Blenders for stepping up to support SDSU. His example is one more local corporations need to follow, or the long-term competitiveness of the Aztecs athletic program will be in jeopardy.
As much as Aztec Link and the MESA Foundation are doing in the NIL space, they can’t simply rely on the average ticket holder or casual Aztecs fan to pony up enough to compete with the conferences raiding talent at all levels, with pools of money making loyalty a mere fantasy moving forward.
We need the well-heeled corporate folks to make SDSU sports a priority, or we will see talent like football’s Trey White and Owen Chambliss and basketball’s Nick Boyd hitting the road for bigger paydays every season. Don’t tell me this year’s men’s basketball team wouldn’t benefit from Boyd’s leadership and scoring ability at the point.
To be clear, no hate directed at players who leave for more money. If you can get it, go get it if that’s what you feel is right for you. But I do question making a donation to NIL accounts when there are no guarantees it won’t be anything but a one-year rental.
The NCAA needs to put some rules in place to keep this from killing all but the top 25–35 teams in the country for football and basketball.
Growing Attendance into the Assets that are Snapdragon Stadium/Viejas Arena and Further Development of SDSU Mission Valley
Finally, 2026 needs to be about figuring out how to get more football fans into Snapdragon Stadium. The 2025 team under Coach Sean Lewis played well enough to compete for a conference championship, and yet SDFC regularly outdrew Aztecs football in attendance at the Snap last year.
According to Nevada Sports Net, SDSU’s average attendance came in at 26,189 for last season. While that figure represents a modest increase of about 1,400 fans from 2024, anyone who attends Aztecs home football games will tell you the place rarely looks more than half full.
True to form, Aztecs students show up and pack the end zone. For a half. Swing over to that section in the middle of the third quarter, and only a handful of diehards remain. Here we finally have our own stadium with some nice amenities and great sightlines, and yet we can’t fill it to give the Aztecs a true home-field advantage.
SDSU Football just last week announced that in 2026 James Madison University will be coming to Snapdragon Stadium for the final out of conference spot that was open on the schedule. The JMU Dukes are fresh off their first ever College Football Playoff appearance where they lost to a talented Oregon Ducks roster.
Though this is a great matchup between the Aztecs vs Dukes and will probably be fiercely competitive, it will be interesting to see if it really moves the needle in the community. Are San Diego State football fans, let alone casual football fans in San Diego going to show up against a home schedule that continues to feature the likes of Stony Brook, Portland State, and yes JMU who while made the CFP is still a brand many connect with the lower division of the FCS.
A start would be to take a look at the current ticket pricing structure. If season ticket numbers are going down and you have to cut prices in the middle of the season to entice fans to buy a ticket, maybe you’ve out-priced the market and/or overvalued your product.
Thank goodness the rest of the SDSU Mission Valley development seems to be picking up steam and building up more new structures. Will that growth help the bottom line so that the football game tickets can drop a little? We’ll see.
Basketball may quickly be headed for a similar fate. Did you see this year’s non-conference home schedule?
Long Beach State, Idaho State, Troy, Utah Valley, Lamar, and Whittier? Why are we paying top dollar to see teams that should be in San Diego to play UCSD or USD, not a team that has been to the Final Four and the Sweet Sixteen very recently?
SDSU currently has agreements in place for participation in the big PlayersEra NIL Festival tournament until 2029. The Aztecs have been a founding participant since last season, when the festival had it’s inaugural games. It is an absolutely amazing opportunity for the brand to be connected to this event every November.
While the fest allows the team to play against the best competition out there—the games take place in Las Vegas during Thanksgiving’s ‘Feast Week’. This is very exciting and though large numbers of SDSU fans tend to cover the expense of travel and lodging to any game in Vegas, for the majority it’s a set of games most will not see in person.
Another season or two with lousy draws at Viejas Arena like aforementioned and some season ticket holders might be tuning into USA Network and The CW to get their Aztecs hoops fix.
The new Pac-12 will bring Gonzaga to town each year, but let’s work on at least one marquee team outside of the conference to get the fan base excited to be at Viejas before the new year. Is that too much to ask?
With both the men’s and women’s basketball teams at the top of the standings in conference play at the time of this writing, and football seeing some quality players sticking around and coming in via the portal, 2026 has the makings of a successful year in current and new conference surroundings as the year unfolds.
But like sticking to New Year’s resolutions, there is work to be done to ensure goals are reached and we don’t slip back into old habits.
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