Gonzaga’s more than two decades of men’s basketball dominance has long put the school in conference realignment conversations. Never could the right fit be found.
The Big East made sense athletically and institutionally, but not geographically. Not having football made things more complicated with the old Pac-12 or new Big 12. Was the Mountain West enough of a step up? Instead, Gonzaga stayed put in the West Coast Conference, with league policies built largely to keep the Bulldogs happy. They played 16 conference games rather than 18 to give the Zags more flexibility to schedule in the nonconference, gave the top two seeds (essentially a lock for the Zags to be one of the two) byes to the semifinals of the WCC tournament, even gave them a sweetheart deal that allowed the Bulldogs to keep much of the NCAA tournament revenue they generate the league each offseason.
Finally came a deal Gonzaga decided it couldn’t refuse. The Bulldogs are headed to the newly rebuilt Pac-12, sources confirmed to Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde on Tuesday morning. The Pac-12 still needs one full (football-playing) member before 2026 to be considered a complete conference, but landing one of the biggest basketball brands anywhere that fits into the league’s regional footprint is a major coup. It’s an even bigger win considering the bumps the Pac-12 has hit since making its first expansion move in September, striking out at least initially with targets from the AAC and Mountain West.
From an on-court perspective, this should be an upgrade for the Zags. San Diego State is a consistent powerhouse out West, and Utah State, Colorado State and Boise State all earned at-large NCAA tournament bids last season. That’s without mentioning Oregon State or Washington State, who’ve struggled at the power-conference level for much of their programs’ histories but have the resources necessary to compete in this newly reconstructed league.
But off the court is where the calculus has changed most and why now is the right time for the Bulldogs to make this move. Bluntly, it takes more money than ever to compete at the highest level, and two looming changes that should have massive implications for Gonzaga only amplify the need for the Bulldogs to get on as even footing as possible with their power-conference peers. And while the final number the Pac-12’s TV deal will land on isn’t known just yet, it’s safe to assume that distributions going to Gonzaga will be a substantial upgrade from what the school received as a WCC member.
The first shift, coming as soon as the 2025–26 season, is revenue sharing with athletes. If the House settlement is approved, Gonzaga’s counterparts in power conferences will start sharing up to $22 million annually with their athletes. A significant portion of that will go to football players, but it’s reasonable to expect many men’s basketball roster budgets to settle in the $4 million to $6 million range at the high-major level. If Gonzaga can’t keep up with that number, its hopes of competing for that elusive first national championship are all but dashed. As a private school, Gonzaga’s athletic department finances aren’t entirely known, but adding millions in television revenue should be a game-changer in keeping pace with other elite programs nationally. Plus, based on the terms sheet other new Pac-12 schools received, Pac-12 schools will keep 50% of NCAA tournament revenue they generate with the other 50% going to the rest of the league. That’s not quite Gonzaga’s WCC arrangement, but it’s more performance-based than how many conferences operate and a chance for Gonzaga to further boost its bottom line.
The other looming seismic shift is the eventual retirement of legendary Bulldogs coach Mark Few. For as long as Few is the coach at Gonzaga, the school’s conference affiliation won’t stop them from competing at a high level. But Few won’t be there forever, and every school with a legendary head coach finds out quickly how hard it is to replace them when they’re gone. Perhaps Few could have navigated being financially behind the biggest programs or stuck in a league with only one other program that seriously competes for NCAA tournament berths. However, assuming whoever follows in his footsteps (likely top assistant Brian Michaelson) can also do that would be a costly mistake. Plus, Gonzaga would have lost some of its realignment leverage once Few retires, potentially as soon as in the next few years. Could they have found a way out of the WCC in a Few-less world? Probably, but maybe not with the deal they’re getting from the Pac-12.
The move clearly positions the Pac-12 as a “best of the rest” conference in basketball, at least on the West Coast. It’s easy to see a world where this league regularly gets three to five teams into the men’s NCAA tournament: You’d have to go back to 2016 to find the last time the old Pac-12 with UCLA, Arizona and other big brands topped five teams in the field. While it seems unlikely the Pac-12 will gain autonomous status (the real marker of a power conference), its basketball success could certainly warrant the “power” label.
And the Pac-12 may not be done adding strong basketball programs. John Canzano reported Tuesday there was mutual interest between the Pac-12 and Grand Canyon, another extremely well-resourced basketball program out West that won an NCAA tournament game this year. ESPN also reported preliminary interest in Saint Mary’s, Gonzaga’s longtime WCC rival, but indicated the Pac-12 focus in the meantime was adding an eighth football-playing member.
There was never going to be a perfect conference destination for Gonzaga. Small Jesuit non-football schools in eastern Washington don’t neatly fit into the complex puzzle of conference realignment. But the oncoming shifts in the landscape made now the right time to pursue this type of move, and landing in a regional league with better basketball programs and more revenue makes this move the right one for one of college basketball’s top brands.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Gonzaga’s Move to the Pac-12 Is a Financial and On-the-Court Upgrade.
