A number has been making the rounds lately on Pac-12 forums and college sports Twitter: $13 million per school. For SDSU fans who’ve spent years watching the Mountain West get lapped financially, it reads like proof the rebuilt Pac-12 is about to operate on a completely different planet than the league they’re leaving behind.

The reality, after sifting through the financial disclosures tied to Washington State and Oregon State and the public reporting on the conference’s media negotiations, is messier than that. The rebuilt Pac-12 probably will generate meaningfully more money than the Mountain West did. But somewhere along the way, a long-term ceiling got passed around as a confirmed annual check.

Where the number actually came from

The conversation took off after WSU and OSU’s filings gave everyone the first real look at the conference’s books during the temporary “Pac-2” stretch. Total revenue came in around $111.5 million — a stunning fall from the old Pac-12 days, when annual revenue cleared half a billion. The bridge TV arrangement with Fox and The CW reportedly produced only about $3 million in total. Not per school. Total.

That sounds catastrophic, and on its own, it kind of is. But the same reporting included a forward-looking note worth paying attention to: conference officials reportedly expect the new media cycle starting in 2026 to clear $50 million annually. Fans took that figure, added in CFP money, NCAA tournament units, bowl revenue, and sponsorships, and arrived at $13 million per school. The math isn’t crazy. It’s just being presented as something it isn’t.

The distinction worth making

There’s no credible reporting that says Pac-12 schools are guaranteed $13 million annually from TV alone. Most projections actually land well below that. The Mercury News’ Jon Wilner has estimated the Pac-12’s potential media deal at $9 million-$10 million annually per school, which lines up with what other reporters covering the conference have suggested. Some earlier estimates landed even lower, in the $7–8 million range.

Even that lower band is a real jump from the Mountain West, where schools were pulling in around $3.5–4 million annually in conference media distributions. So the upgrade is real. It’s just not as dramatic as the rumor mill would have you believe. The $13 million figure almost certainly comes from bundling every projected revenue stream together — media rights, CFP distributions, tournament credits, bowls, sponsorships, postseason payouts — and treating the sum as the headline TV number. Those are very different things.

What this looks like, school by school

Here’s where it gets complicated, because not every new Pac-12 member is on the same deal. The legacy schools, the full-share football newcomers, the partial-share football member, the basketball-only program, and the baseball affiliate are all walking into very different financial arrangements. A rough breakdown of what each can expect, with the obvious caveat that nothing here is officially confirmed until the new media deal is signed and announced.

Oregon State and Washington State. The two holdovers are in a category by themselves. They fought the court battle that kept the conference and its assets alive, retained roughly $250 million in future Pac-12 revenue, and kept full control of what’s now Pac-12 Enterprises, the league’s in-house production arm. They’ve already absorbed the worst of the “Pac-2” revenue collapse, which means the new deal represents a recovery for them rather than a step up. Once the media cycle starts in 2026, they’ll be in the same general full-share range as the other founding football members — call it the $10–13 million all-in ballpark — but they’re walking in with equity and leverage the newcomers don’t have. They’re also the only schools that don’t have to navigate the awkwardness of being “the new kids.”

San Diego State, Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State, Utah State. The five Mountain West refugees coming over as full members are the closest thing the league has to a base case. If conservative TV projections land in the $9–10 million range and the rest of the revenue pie (CFP, NCAA units, bowls, sponsorships) adds another few million per school, full-share members could realistically see somewhere in the $10–13 million annual range once everything stabilizes. That’s where the “$13 million” rumor probably has its strongest grounding, and it’s still very much a projection rather than a promise.

Texas State. This is the asterisk people keep missing. Texas State is expected to initially receive a partial share of the conference’s media revenue and gradually increase to a full share by 2031, according to reporting from the Austin Sports Journal. That means the Bobcats are going to make less than the other full members in the early years of the new deal — possibly meaningfully less — even though they’re a foundational football member. The trade is access now in exchange for a delayed full payout. Realistic ballpark for year one is probably in the mid-single-digit millions, scaling up over the next five years.

Gonzaga. The Zags are joining as a basketball-only full member, which changes the math entirely. They don’t get a slice of any football-specific revenue, but they will share in basketball media value, NCAA tournament units (where Gonzaga is genuinely valuable to the league), and the basketball-side sponsorship pool. Hard to pin down a number, but the most reasonable estimate is somewhere in the $2–5 million range annually — much less than the football schools, but for a private school without a football program to fund, that math actually works fine. Their real value to the conference is reciprocal: prestige and TV inventory in exchange for a structural payout.

Dallas Baptist and the other affiliates. DBU is a single-sport baseball affiliate, not a full member. Dallas Baptist plays in the Lone Star Conference, with the exception of baseball, which will move from Conference USA to the Pac-12. Affiliate members don’t share in the main conference revenue distribution the way full members do. They typically pay or receive a much smaller, sport-specific fee tied to broadcasts and postseason in their particular sport. The realistic number for DBU is in the low hundreds of thousands annually, not millions. Worth noting: the Pac-12 is adding 11 affiliate members in 2026 in sports that range from baseball to soccer to wrestling to gymnastics, including Southern Utah in women’s gymnastics, Cal Poly in men’s soccer and wrestling, and a handful of other single-sport partners. All of them are on small, sport-specific arrangements similar to DBU’s.

Put together, the new Pac-12 isn’t a league where every school gets the same check. It’s a tiered structure: a pair of legacy founders, five full-share football newcomers, Texas State on a ramp toward full share, Gonzaga in its own basketball lane, and a stack of affiliates on sport-specific deals. That tiering is actually part of why the “$13 million per school” framing falls apart on contact — there isn’t really such a thing as one Pac-12 payout.

The ninth football member’s question

One thing worth flagging: the Pac-12 is starting at eight football members, which is the FBS minimum and one short of what most athletic directors actually want. Pac-12 insider John Canzano has reported that multiple ADs believe nine is the ideal number of football schools, since it would allow for a cleaner eight-game round-robin schedule. UNLV has been the most-discussed candidate for that ninth slot — a Vegas market school would obviously be attractive — but the Rebels already turned down one Pac-12 offer to stay in the Mountain West, and AAC schools like UTSA, Tulane, and Memphis face exit fees that may make a move impractical.

More recent reporting suggests the conference is in no particular rush. Washington State president Elizabeth Cantwell recently said any additional schools would have to be ready for the conference’s brand, and Colorado State’s AD has publicly pushed back on the idea of adding members just to hit a number. If a ninth member doesn’t materialize, it directly affects the math in this article — fewer schools dividing the same revenue pool actually keeps per-school payouts higher.

Why the move still matters for SDSU

Even with the more conservative projections, the rebuilt Pac-12 represents a serious upgrade in both money and visibility for the full-share schools, and the visibility piece might end up mattering more than the dollar figure. The conference’s media package now spans CBS, The CW, and Versant’s new USA Sports, with an emphasis on national over-the-air windows that the Mountain West simply couldn’t deliver. That kind of exposure feeds recruiting, sponsorships, NIL, postseason positioning, and — eventually — the next media deal.

The league is also leaning on Pac-12 Enterprises to keep production costs down while maximizing distribution. The bet is that controlling your own production while putting games on broadcast TV can compound into something bigger over the next deal cycle.

The real gamble

The strategy isn’t subtle. The rebuilt Pac-12 is trading immediate financial security for national exposure, better TV windows, and long-term upside. The conference is betting that SDSU, Boise State, Fresno State, and the rest of the foundational members can collectively build enough value over the next several years to command a much bigger payout the next time around.

Whether it works depends on things nobody can fully control. If ratings flop, if expansion stalls, or if the league can’t make any real noise in football or basketball, the Pac-12 risks getting stranded in a weird middle space between the Power Two and the Group of Five. But if SDSU keeps doing what it’s been doing — particularly on the basketball side — there’s a genuine path to this looking like a smart move three or four years from now.

For the moment, the honest read is this: $13 million is best understood as an optimistic all-in ceiling for full-share members, not a guaranteed annual check, and definitely not a universal one. Even the conservative version of the deal, though, should mean more money and a lot more eyeballs for San Diego State. Which, depending on how this all shakes out, might be the thing that actually matters.

Murphy from Sports On The Mesa