Pac-12 Conference

Member universities

Full members

The Pac-12 currently has nine full member institutions. The conference was previously split into two divisions, the North Division and the South Division, for football only. On September 12, 2024, the conference announced it would be adding four new members, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, and San Diego State, on July 1, 2026. However, the conference needed to add at least two more football-playing members to be recognized by the NCAA as an FBS conference. On September 23, 2024, Utah State accepted an offer to join the league as its seventh member. This gave the Pac-12 the seven members needed to preserve its official "multisport" status, though one more football-sponsoring full member was needed to preserve FBS status. On September 30, 2024, the conference announced that Gonzaga, a non-football University, would be joining as a full member. In June 2025, it was reported that Texas State would announce its move to the Pac-12 on June 30, 2025, the last day before that school's exit fee from the Sun Belt Conference would have doubled from $5 million to $10 million. Texas State's arrival, announced that same day, marked the ninth full-time member for the Pac-12 and also the eighth and final football member required to preserve FBS status.

Notes

Affiliate members

The Pac-12 has affiliate member institutions competing in baseball, men's soccer, men's wrestling, women's swimming & diving, and women's gymnastics.

Notes

Former full members

No school had left the Pac-12 from its founding as the AAWU in 1959 until 2024, when 10 of its 12 schools left. Two members of the PCC, Idaho and Montana, were not invited to join the AAWU or its successors.

Notes

Former affiliate members

Notes

Membership timeline

The Pac-12 claims the PCC's history as its own. Not only did it maintain the automatic bid from the Rose Bowl inherited from the PCC, but the eight largest schools in the old PCC all eventually joined the new league. However, the old PCC operated under a separate charter.

The Pac-12 is one of the founding members of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), a conference organized to provide competition in non-revenue Olympic sports. All-Pac-12 members participate in at least one MPSF sport (men's and women's indoor track and field both actually have enough participating Pac-12 schools for the conference to sponsor a championship, but the Pac-12 has opted not to do so). For certain sports, the Pac-12 admits certain schools as associate members.

Full members

Full members (non-football)

Associate members (football only)

Assoc. member (list sports)

Independent

Other conference 1

Other conference 2

History

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). An official of Stanford University also attended the meeting but declined to join right away because, unlike the other schools, it was not going to sponsor a football team in the coming year and it was not willing to prohibit freshmen from competing in sports. The PCC began play in 1916.

One year later, Washington State College (now Washington State University) joined the league, followed by Stanford University in 1918.

In 1922, the PCC expanded to eight teams with the admission of USC and Idaho. Montana joined the Conference in 1924, and in 1928, the PCC grew to 10 members with the addition of UCLA.

For many years, the conference split into two divisions for basketball and baseball—a Southern Division comprising the four California schools and a Northern Division comprising the six schools in the Pacific Northwest.

In 1950, Montana departed to join the Mountain States Conference. The PCC continued as a nine-team league through June 1959.

AAWU (Big Five and Big Six)

Following "pay-for-play" scandals at California, USC, UCLA, and Washington, the PCC disbanded in June 1959. Ten months earlier in August 1958, these four schools agreed to form a new conference that would take effect the following summer. 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. Stanford joined during the first month. 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, the conference became informally known as the Big Six. The new league inherited the PCC's berth in the Rose Bowl; since 1947, the PCC champion had received an automatic bid to the bowl.

Idaho was never invited to join the AAWU; the Vandals were independent for four years until the formation of the Big Sky Conference in 1963, and were independent in football until 1965.

Pacific-8

Oregon and Oregon State joined in the summer of 1964. With their addition, the conference was known unofficially as the Pacific Athletic Conference, 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. Utah was a member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) with Arizona and Arizona State before those two left for the Pac-10 in 1978. The Utes left an expanded WAC with seven other schools in 1999 to form the new Mountain West Conference. Utah became the first "BCS Buster" to join a BCS conference, having played in (and won) two BCS games beforehand.

On July 27, 2010, the conference unveiled a new logo and announced that the Pac-10 would be renamed the Pac-12 when Utah and Colorado formally joined in July 2011. On October 21, the Pac-12 announced that its football competition would be split into two divisions—a North Division comprising the Pacific Northwest and Bay Area schools, and a South Division comprising the Mountain Time Zone and Southern California schools. On July 1, 2011, the Pac-12 assumed its 12-team alignment when both Colorado and Utah officially joined as full members.

On August 15, 2012, the conference debuted the Pac-12 Network. It was the third college sports conference to launch a dedicated network, and the first to completely fund and own their own network outright.

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 Pac-12 Commissioner George 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.

Conference re-build and expansion (2024–2026)

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 dormant 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: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State.

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 MW, but the Pac-12 filed a lawsuit, arguing that the penalties were extreme and violated antitrust 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 MW. Boise State also later joined.

Conference revival (2026–present)

On July 1, 2026, the Pac-12 re-launched as a nine member conference with the addition of seven new full-time members including Boise State University, California State University, Fresno (Fresno State), Colorado State University, Gonzaga University, San Diego State University, Texas State University and Utah State University.

As of September 4, 2026, the eight Pac-12 members will be eligible to participate in the Poinsettia Bowl and the Hawaii Bowl. The 2026 Poinsettia Bowl will feature the Pac-12 Champion against a Pac-12 legacy team. The 2026 Hawaii Bowl will include a Pac-12 team versus a Mountain West team.

Financials

Conference distributions

The following table shows Pac 12 Conference distributions during the fiscal year beginning 07-01-2024 ending 06-30-2025 as reported by ProPublica using Schedule A of the Pac 12 Conference tax filing submitted on May 15, 2026.

Athletic department revenue by school

Total revenue includes ticket sales, contributions and donations, rights and licensing, student fees, school funds and all other sources including TV income, camp income, concessions, and novelties.

Total expenses includes coach and staff salaries, scholarships, buildings and grounds, maintenance, utilities and rental fees, recruiting, team travel, equipment and uniforms, conference dues, and insurance.

The following table shows institutional reporting to the United States Department of Education as shown on the DOE Equity in Athletics website for the 2023–24 academic year.

CNBC list of the most valuable Pac-12 schools

Rankings as of December 19, 2025 (2024–2025 academic year)

Commissioners

Since restarting in 1959 as the AAWU, the Pac-12 has had six commissioners:

PCC

Commissioners of the forerunner PCC:

Herb Dana (193x–40)

Edwin N. Atherton (1940–44)

Victor O. Schmidt (1944–59)

Key personnel

Salaries based on 2026–27 academic year

Championships

National championships

The Pac-12 has won more NCAA team national championships than any other Division I conference since its founding in 1915. Although conference membership changed significantly during the 2021–2026 conference realignment, all championships won by former and current member institutions while they were members of the conference remain part of the conference's historical record.

The current Pac-12 membership entering the 2026–27 academic year has combined for the following NCAA team national championships:

These totals do not include football national championships, which the NCAA does not officially award at the FBS level. Various polls, formulas, and other third-party systems have been used to determine national championships, not all of which are universally accepted. These totals also do not include championships prior to the inception of NCAA championships in each sport.

Conference champions

Football

Men's basketball

Women's basketball

Baseball

Softball

Gymnastics

Men's soccer

Women's soccer

Women's volleyball

Source:

The NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup is an annual award given by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the U.S. colleges and universities with the most success in collegiate athletics.

The Capital One Cup is an annual award given by ESPN. Universities compete against each other by acquiring points throughout the school year based on how each individual sport teams finish in their respective sport. The sports are divided into two separate groups based on the popularity of the sport and the number of teams competing in the sport, with the group B sports group counting for 3 times the amount of points as group A. There are two separate cups for both the men & women. The winning schools receive $200,000 to their student athlete scholarship fund.

Men's

Women's

Sports

The Pac-12 Conference sponsors championship competition in eight men's sports and eleven women's NCAA-sanctioned sports. Thirteen schools are associate members, each in a single men's or women’s sport.

Men's sponsored sports by Pac-12 schools

Member-by-member sponsorship of men's sports sponsored by Pac-12 schools that have been announced as being sponsored by the Pac-12 in 2026–27.

Notes

Women's sponsored sports by Pac-12 schools

Member-by-member sponsorship of women's sports sponsored by Pac-12 schools that have been announced as being sponsored by the Pac-12 in 2026–27.

Notes

Football

All-time school records

This list goes through the 2025 season.

Number of Claimed National Championships, as well as win–loss–tie records, include all seasons played, regardless of conference membership.

Rivalries

The Battle For The Milk Can – The Milk Can Trophy is awarded to the winning athletic department between Boise State and Fresno State.

The Battle For The Old Oil Can – The Old Oil Can Trophy is awarded to the winning athletic department between the two California schools.

Oregon State-Washington State football rivalry - The game between Oregon State and Washington State is one of the top 40 most played rivalries in NCAA football, historically being apart of the Northwest Championship. The individual matchup between the two schools gained notoriety following the collapse of the Pac-12. The matchup has not been officially named yet, with suggestions including "The Land-Grant Rivalry", "The Cascade Cup", or "The Columbia River Rivalry".

Snake River Rivalry - Boise State and Washington State have developed a fast rivalry, due to the schools' proximity, and the success of the two programs, spurred on by Boise State's move to the Pac-12.

The most frequently played rivalry in the conference is between Oregon State and Washington State with 111 meetings through 2025. This rivalry is one of the most-played rivalries in college football.

Bowl games

The following is the selection order of bowl games with Pac-12 tie-ins as of the 2026 college football season. Due to the nature of the conference, the Pac-12 bowl tie ins are split between the 12 legacy and 6 new members. If a Pac-12 team, legacy or current, is selected to participate in the College Football Playoff, all other bowl-eligible teams move up one spot in the order.

Legacy Pac-12

On October 21, 2010, the Pac-10 announced the creation of divisions and a championship game in football, to be used when Colorado and Utah joined the conference effective July 1, 2011. The twelve members were split into two divisions for football only: a North Division comprising the Pacific Northwest and Bay Area schools, and a South Division comprising the Mountain Time Zone and Los Angeles schools.

A nine-game conference schedule was maintained, with five games within the assigned division and four games from the opposite division. The four California teams, noted in the table in gray, still played each other every season— consequently, the four non-California teams in each division will only play one of the two California teams from the opposite division each year.

The Pac-12 Football Championship Game featured the North Division Champion against the South Division Champion for the first 11 years of its existence, with divisional champions determined based on record in all conference games (both divisional and cross-divisional). However, on May 18, 2022, the NCAA Division I Council announced that conferences would no longer be required to maintain divisions in order to hold a conference championship. As a result, later that same day, the Pac-12 announced that it would eliminate its divisions for the 2022 football season and beyond, with the championship game instead featuring the two Pac-12 teams with the highest winning percentage. It was the first FBS conference to scrap its divisions as a result of this change.

The following was the selection order of bowl games with Pac-12 tie-ins in the 2024 college football season, the last season of the Legacy Pac-12. If a Pac-12 team was selected to participate in the College Football Playoff, all other bowl-eligible teams moved up one spot in the order.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the conference, an All-Century Team was unveiled on December 2, 2015, voted on by a panel of coaches, players, and the media.

Quarterbacks: John Elway, Stanford; Marcus Mariota, Oregon; Jim Plunkett, Stanford; Andrew Luck, Stanford; Matt Leinart, USC

Men's basketball

As of 2026, Pac-12 schools have won 15 Division I national titles. This was tied with the Atlantic Coast Conference for the most of any conference. Oregon won the first NCAA tournament in 1939. UCLA has won 11 national titles, the most of any Division I team. Arizona has won the most recent national title, winning in 1997. Stanford in 1942, Utah in 1944 and California in 1959 are the other NCAA champions.

Source:

National championships, Final Fours, and NCAA tournament appearances

Pac-12 Conference basketball programs have combined to win 15 NCAA men's basketball championships as Pac-12 members, with another member having won a national championship before joining the conference. UCLA has won 11 national championships with Arizona, California, Oregon, Stanford winning one each as Pac-12 members, and Utah winning one national championship as a member of the Mountain States Conference. Eleven of the twelve legacy Pac-12 schools advanced to at least one Final Four before the 2024 mass departure, with Arizona State the only school that had not made an appearance. Current members Gonzaga and San Diego State have also reached the Final Four.

Current members of the Big Ten Current members of the Big 12 Current members of the ACC

Seasons are listed by the calendar years in which they ended. Italics indicate honors earned before the school competed in the Pac-12.

NCAA tournament champions, runners-up and locations

† denotes overtime games. Multiple †'s indicate more than one overtime.