Even though football is the main focus, basketball will not be pushed to the background in the new Pac-12 format as the league considers its options from coast to coast.
According to a report from Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, Gonzaga “is expected to be a destination for the Pac-12,” along with Memphis of the American Athletic Conference, to create a formidable basketball league that also includes 2023 national runner-up San Diego State.
The Pac-12 must add at least two more football schools by July 1, 2026, to be considered an FBS conference and meet College Football Playoff requirements. Memphis and Tulane are among the schools the conference is reportedly targeting, though no formal invitations have been extended since Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State signed last week for the 2026-27 season.
Dellenger said the Pac-12 expects to receive an annual payout of $12 million to $15 million per school if the league can acquire the top two AAC schools. In addition, new members would have to sign a five-year rights transfer agreement through 2030-31.
It’s unclear how the Pac-12 would share its revenue with a non-football school if it landed Gonzaga, although the league’s plan calls for a distribution model that includes a performance-based element.
While most conferences choose to divide NCAA Tournament bids evenly among their members, including those that didn’t make the tournament, the West Coast Conference rewards its most successful teams with a bigger piece of the pie – an equal opportunity system that former Gonzaga athletic director Mike Roth helped establish several years ago when the Bulldogs were being courted by the Mountain West.
If the new Pac-12’s performance-based distribution model works similarly, Gonzaga may have a reason to at least consider what benefits the school might get if it opted to move to the Pac-12. The level of competition in January and February would certainly be a step up, as the Bulldogs would have multiple games against the Aztecs, Tigers, Broncos and Rams on the league schedule. Mark Few and his staff have aggressively scheduled non-league games over the years to build Gonzaga’s postseason track record; in a league with three to four true tournament teams, there wouldn’t be as much pressure to play top-25 opponents in the early weeks of the season (which isn’t to say Few and the team wouldn’t do that anyway).
On the other hand, the Bulldogs have never missed the postseason and have appeared in two national championship games as WCC members during the Few era. The league also expanded to include Grand Canyon and Seattle U as full-time members beginning in the 2025-26 season, a move Gonzaga athletic director Chris Standiford called “very stabilizing” for the conference given the great uncertainty in college sports.
Even if the Zags decide not to take on Happy, that may not stop the Pac-12 from at least inquiring about the school’s interest.
“I refuse to believe that there’s just no way to make a compelling offer to Gonzaga to join your conference as the premier member in men’s basketball without it being a net loss for the conference,” CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish said on a podcast earlier this week. “I would look to see if there’s a way to make it work. I bet (Big 12 commissioner) Brett Yormark would believe there’s a way to make it work. And if I were the Pac-12, I would try to find a way to make it work. And if I were Gonzaga, I would be interested in doing that because I know they have a good setup in the WCC, but at some point you should use your success to improve your place in the world of college sports.”
