Pacific Coast Conference The roots of the Pac-12 Conference go back to December 2, 1915, when the
Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was founded at the
Imperial Hotel in
Portland, Oregon, during the annual meeting of the
Northwest Conference schools. Charter members were the University of California (now University of California, Berkeley), University of Washington, University of Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University). When the four schools and Stanford began discussions for a new conference in 1959, retired admiral
Thomas J. Hamilton interceded and suggested the schools consider creating a national "power conference" (Hamilton had been a key player, head coach, and athletic director at
Navy, and was the current athletic director at
Pittsburgh). Nicknamed the "
Airplane Conference", the five former PCC schools would have played with other major academically oriented schools, including
Army,
Navy,
Air Force,
Notre Dame,
Pitt,
Penn State, and
Syracuse. The effort fell through when a
Pentagon official vetoed the idea and the service academies backed out. On July 1, 1959, the new
Athletic Association of Western Universities was launched, with California, UCLA, USC, and Washington as the four charter members. Hamilton left Pittsburgh to become the first commissioner of the AAWU, and remained for twelve years. The conference also was popularly known as the
Big Five from 1960 to 1962. When
Washington State joined in 1962, With their addition, the conference was known unofficially as the
Pacific Athletic and then the
Pacific-8. In 1968, the AAWU formally renamed itself the
Pacific-8 Conference, or
Pac-8 for short. The Pac-8 did not allow a second
bowl team from the conference until the
1975 season; in basketball, participation in the
National Invitation Tournament (NIT) was not allowed until
1973.
Pacific-10 In
1978, the conference added
Arizona and
Arizona State from the
Western Athletic Conference, becoming the
Pacific-10 Conference or
Pac-10. The invitations to the schools were extended in December 1976, and the expansion formally announced in May 1977. In the mid-1980s, three of the northwest schools (Oregon, Oregon State, Washington State) were having financial difficulties in athletics, primarily with revenue from football, and their long-term membership in the conference was in question. The Pac-10 began sponsoring women's athletics in the fall of 1986. Women's teams previously competed with other large universities on the
Pacific coast in either the
Northern Pacific Conference or the
Western Collegiate Athletic Association. In the mid-1990s, the conference expressed interest in admitting the University of Colorado and the
University of Texas after the collapse of the
Southwest Conference. Texas expressed an interest in joining a strong academic conference, but joined three fellow Southwest Conference schools (
Texas A&M,
Texas Tech, and
Baylor) to merge with the
Big Eight Conference to form the
Big 12 Conference in
1996. Colorado elected to remain in the newly formed Big 12. Before the addition of Colorado and Utah in 2011, only the
Ivy League had maintained its membership for a longer time than the Pac-10 among Division I conferences. Commissioner Larry Scott said on February 9, 2010, that the window for expansion was open for the next year as the conference began negotiations for a new television deal. Speaking on a conference call to introduce former Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg as his new deputy, Scott talked about possibly adding new teams to the conference and launching a new television network. Scott, the former head of the Women's Tennis Association, took over the conference in July 2009. In his first eight months on the job, he saw growing interest from the membership over the possibility of adding teams for the first time since Arizona and Arizona State joined the conference in 1978.
"Legacy" Pac-12 In early June 2010, there were reports that the Pac-10 was considering adding up to six teams to the conference: the University of Texas,
Texas A&M University,
Texas Tech University, the
University of Oklahoma,
Oklahoma State University, and the University of Colorado. On June 10, 2010, the University of Colorado Boulder accepted an invitation to join the Pac-10 Conference, effective starting with the 2012–2013 academic year. The school later announced it would join the conference a year earlier than previously announced, in the 2011–2012 academic year. On June 15, 2010, a deal was reached between
Texas and the
Big 12 Conference to keep Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State in the Big 12. Following Texas' decision, the other Big 12 schools that had been rumored candidates to join the Pac-10 announced they would remain in the Big 12. This deal effectively ended the Pac-10's ambition to potentially become a sixteen-team conference. On June 17, 2010, the
University of Utah accepted an invitation to join the Pac-10 Conference, effective starting July 2011. Since 2014, the conference was headquartered in
San Francisco, California, with the conference moving to working remotely once the lease expires in June 2023. The Pac-12 Network and meeting space for headquarters employees are now located at
Bishop Ranch in
San Ramon, an
East Bay suburb.
NCAA conference realignment (2021–2023) On August 24, 2021, the Pac-12,
ACC, and
Big Ten announced the formation of a "historic alliance" that would bring their member institutions "together on a collaborative approach surrounding the future evolution of college athletics and scheduling." The formation of this alliance between three of the
Power Five conferences was in response to
Oklahoma and
Texas announcing
plans to leave the
Big 12 and join the
SEC. The alliance included an inter-conference scheduling component for football and men's and women's basketball. In 2021, the Pac-12 paid $19.8 million to each of its member schools, the lowest distribution in the Power Five. Despite the alliance, on June 30, 2022,
UCLA and
USC announced their departure for the
Big Ten Conference beginning in the 2024–25 academic year. As a result of losing two of the conference's tentpole programs (and the entirety of the
Los Angeles television market), the conference's ongoing media rights negotiations became much more complicated. ESPN reportedly had made an offer in which the ten remaining schools would receive around $30 million per year. This was rejected by member schools, who countered with a demand for $50 million per school per year. ESPN responded by walking away from the negotiating table. Reports began circulating that Commissioner Kliavkoff had been to the
San Diego State University and
SMU campuses for tours. This was allegedly part of the conference's vetting process for expansion. San Diego State sent the
Mountain West Conference a letter notifying it of the school's impending departure. The Pac-12, however, was adamant about securing a media rights deal before expanding. Without an incoming offer before a June 30, 2023, deadline, San Diego State had to rescind its notice of intention to leave the Mountain West. At the start of Pac-12 Media Days on July 21, 2023, Commissioner Kliavkoff was asked about the status of the media rights deal and conference expansion, deflecting most questions on the matter. Colorado president Rick George left Media Days early to return to Boulder. Less than a week later on July 27, 2023, Colorado announced it would return to the Big 12 as of the 2024–25 school year. The nine remaining Pac-12 members then demanded an update on the negotiations, including numbers on expected payouts. Kliavkoff came back with a deal from the
Apple TV+ streaming service that paid member institutions in the low-to-mid-$20 million range, albeit with escalators for meeting subscriber quotas. On August 4, 2023, Oregon and Washington announced they would be following UCLA and USC to the Big Ten conference for the 2024 season. Later on that same day, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah announced that they would follow Colorado to the Big 12 Conference starting in 2024. On September 1, 2023, California and Stanford announced their departure for the Atlantic Coast Conference starting in 2024. In September 2023,
Yahoo! Sports reported that the Pac-12 is "expected to operate as a two-member conference at least for [2024–25]" and would be recognized under a two-year
grace period, until 2026, to meet conference requirements in the
NCAA bylaws. On September 8, 2023, Oregon State and Washington State filed a lawsuit against the Pac-12 and Commissioner
George Kliavkoff in
Washington State Superior Court for control of the conference and its assets. They contended that the departing schools, under the conference constitution, forfeited their right to participate in governing the conference by publicly declaring their intention to leave, and that if they retain control they might use it to dissolve the league and drain its millions of dollars in assets. On November 14, 2023, Judge Gary Libey of the
Whitman County, Washington, Superior Court ruled in favor of the two schools. The
University of Washington (UW) filed an emergency motion to keep the two schools from gaining full control of the conference for the 2023–24 academic year; a Washington Supreme Court commissioner granted UW's motion on November 28, 2023. However, this was overturned on December 15, 2023, by the
Washington State Supreme Court, giving Oregon State and Washington State sole control of the Pac-12, meaning the departing schools will no longer be able to vote on conference decisions. On December 5, 2023, Oregon State and Washington State announced that they had entered into a football alliance with the
Mountain West Conference (MW) for the 2024 season. With the alliance, both programs will play three home games and three away games against MW opponents. The
West Coast Conference (WCC) has invited both schools to join as affiliate members for basketball and most other non-football sports. Both partnerships are expected to last from the fall of 2024 to the spring of 2026. Washington State will also participate in the Mountain West for baseball, but Oregon State, a three-time
College World Series champion, will become a baseball independent. After the ten schools departed, the conference continued using the Pac-12 name and branding for at least the 2024–25 academic year. Oregon State and Washington State were nicknamed the "Pac-2" by media outlets, to the point that a game between the two teams during the 2023 football season was jokingly dubbed the "Pac-2 Championship Game" by fans.
Conference re-build and expansion (2024–present) Following the victory in the lawsuit, with sole access to all assets of the conference, Oregon State and Washington State were granted permission by the NCAA to act as a defunct conference for the 2024 and 2025 years while planning its future. If they had failed to meet membership requirements by July 1, 2026, the conference would have been disbanded. Varsity teams for the two schools joined the
West Coast Conference,
Mountain West Conference, and
Intercollegiate Rowing Association, depending on the sport, under temporary two-year agreements. Despite this, the Pac-12 sponsored six sports (football, men's and women's track and field, women's gymnastics, wrestling, and baseball). These teams functioned as independents and made heavy use of scheduling agreements with other conferences but acted under the Pac-12 banner and used Pac-12 promotional and broadcast material. On September 12, 2024, it was announced that the conference would add four schools from the Mountain West, led by
Boise State, with
San Diego State,
Fresno State, and
Colorado State following. This violated an anti-poaching clause in the scheduling agreement contract between the Pac-12 and Mountain West, requiring an additional exit fee payment to the MWC, but the Pac-12 filed a lawsuit, arguing that the penalties were extreme and violated anti-trust laws. With the conference now at six members and needing two more to get to the required number for FBS eligibility, the conference reached out to prospective members throughout mid-September, including American Conference members
Memphis and
Tulane, Mountain West member
UNLV, and FBS Independent
UConn. During this time, the conference also looked to add a member in Texas, targeting American members
UTSA,
North Texas, and
Rice. It also looked for non-football teams. The West Coast Conference's
Gonzaga was the Pac-12 top priority, followed by
Saint Mary's and
Creighton. On September 23, 2024, Memphis, Tulane,
USF, and UTSA released a joint statement, acknowledging interest by other conferences, but re-affirming their commitment to the American. UNLV also signed a grant of rights with the Mountain West, and so the Pac-12 regrouped, adding
Utah State as its seventh conference member. Soon after, Utah State and Colorado State joined the anti-poaching lawsuit against the MWC. Boise State also later joined. On September 30, 2024, it was announced that Gonzaga would join the conference as its eighth full member, but since Gonzaga does not field football, the conference still needed an eighth football-playing member to retain FBS eligibility. As the Pac-12 looked to add their final required member,
Texas State, due to a host of preferred reasons, was largely seen as the favorite.
New Mexico State, was floated around as a backup emergency option to get to FBS eligibility if talks with Texas State had fallen through.
Saint Mary's (non-football) was also mentioned during this time to boost the conference's basketball abilities. On June 30, 2025, it was announced that Texas State would join the Pac-12 as its ninth full member and eighth football member, cementing the conference's eligibility for the FBS. It was subsequently reported that the conference was also seeking at least one football-only affiliate to allow for an eight-game conference schedule, with Memphis, UTSA, and Rice named as potential candidates. In September 2025, it was reported that the Pac-12 was unlikely to add another football playing conference member by 2026, with the conference instead looking towards a timeframe of 2027 to add one of the previously discussed American Conference members. For 2026, the conference instead looked to enter a scheduling agreement with a fellow Group of Six conference, largely believed to be Conference USA, to get the same schedule benefits, to help all conference members get an additional game to help fill out their schedules, as most Pac-12 teams at this time had only scheduled 3–4 non-conference games, so combined with a 7-game conference slate, conference members only had 10–11 regular season games scheduled on the books. In September and October 2025, the conference acquired multiple affiliate members for specific "Olympic" sports. First, it was announced that the
Dallas Baptist Patriots would join as a baseball-only member in 2027, moving from Conference USA. Then, the
Southern Utah Thunderbirds were announced to be joining for women's gymnastics from the MPSF. Finally, the
Northern Illinois Huskies were added for men's wrestling, joining from the MAC. On March 30, 2026, the conference announced it had entered into a collaborative partnership with the
Big West Conference for men's soccer beginning in the 2026 fall season. The three men's soccer programs in the Pac-12 (Gonzaga, Oregon State, and San Diego State) will be joined by four affiliate members from the Big West:
Cal Poly,
California Baptist,
UC Riverside, and
UC San Diego, giving both conferences 7 men's soccer programs. Additionally, the two conferences announced they would implement a scheduling collaboration, allowing for crossover matches between programs from both conferences. This arrangement will allow both conferences to maintain their automatic bid to the
NCAA Division I men's soccer tournament and sustain men's soccer opportunities in the western United States. This was followed 2 days later with the announcement that the conference would add four more affiliate members for men's wrestling:
Air Force,
Northern Colorado,
North Dakota State, and
South Dakota State. All four programs would come from the
Big 12 Conference, where they previously competed as wrestling affiliates. During the weekend of April 25th to 26th, 2026, the Pac-12 soft-launched its new conference logo during the spring games of each conference member, The official launch would be on April 27 and it would be the first change to the conference's primary logo since 2011. This new logo is a evolution of the previous one with the biggest changes being the removal of the border, a change to the "A" font, a more modern font of the shield as a whole and a switch from the longtime conference color of blue to black to allow for more fiexibility with colors between each member schools. ==Athletic department revenue by school==