How San Diego State prepared for potential conference realignment

If San Diego State theoretically receives an invitation to another NCAA Division I conference – like, say, the Big 12 or Pac-12 – it will likely be a small group of stakeholders at the university who will make the decision about its future.

“I would assume based on the discussions that we’ve had at this point with people just as we’re trying to figure things out, sell ourselves, it’s a pretty small circle,” San Diego State athletic director John David Wicker told On3 in a video interview. “It’s yourself, it’s the president, maybe a key, you know for us, trustee member. Some schools have a much more active board of trustees.

“Ours, we have a couple key members and there may be an alum or two but it will be a really tight circle.”

Keep that in mind when scrolling past conference realignment rumors on Twitter or message boards this summer and beyond. San Diego State, which in 2022 opened Snapdragon Stadium at a cost of $310 million and in 2023 earned its first men’s basketball Final Four appearance, is on the short list of institutions that could soon get called up from a Group of Five conference to the Power 5.

“The big thing for us is we’ve been working on this for a long time,” Wicker said.

On the day Wicker was named Sports Business Journal AD of the Year, he spoke with On3 about how San Diego State has positioned itself in terms of potential conference realignment options. He had stats at the ready to sell San Diego State (“One of my favorite stats is since the 2010-11 season, our football and men’s basketball combined records is the best in FBS”) and the city of San Diego (“the eighth-largest city in the country, I think we’re the 28th-largest DMA”).

Importance of Snapdragon Stadium

When asked what was the most important item on his to-do list in order to make San Diego State the most attractive expansion candidate possible, Wicker pointed to Snapdragon Stadium. It has a capacity of 35,000 fans and it’s also home to the National Women’s Soccer League franchise San Diego Wave FC and the Major League Rugby club San Diego Legion.

“Looking back, getting a stadium built that allowed us to truly provide the home-field experience that our football team deserved because before we were playing in SDCCU Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium, whatever you want to call it back through the years and you have 70,000 seats and we weren’t putting enough people in the stadium to make it fun for people or meaningful for our student-athletes,” Wicker said. “So the ability to build that stadium in Mission Valley, right-size it for us, but also build it in a way that we’ve got all these other events coming in so now the community of San Diego just has one more reason to want to invest in San Diego State and be a part of San Diego State.

“Then it also showed the rest of the country that we’ve got successful athletics but we’re also going to invest in those athletics to make sure they continue to get better.”

Impact of San Diego State’s location

San Diego State is also positioned in a potentially favorable location, given its time zone and home in Southern California, where current Pac-12 members USC and UCLA will soon leave for the Big Ten. Wicker noted San Diego State is 7-4 against Pac-12 opponents since the 2016 season.

The Mountain West Conference is the only Group of Five conference with members west of the Rocky Mountains, which limits the pool of potential candidates for Power 5 conference expansion.

“Being in the fourth time zone is a benefit right now,” Wicker said. “TV, you know, needs content in that fourth window and the Pacific Time Zone allows that. Being in the Southern California, being the one school in Southern California that plays FBS that’s not in the Big Ten, that’s also a benefit to us as well.

“So you know, I mean there’s some benefits and then there’s some negatives to it as well. I think where we sit, the city that we sit in and what’s happened in Southern California over the past year will benefit us in the long run.”

Factors for candidates in modern conference realignment

Amid changing college athletics and media landscapes, what factors matter in modern conference realignment?

Wicker first mentioned San Diego State’s location within San Diego as conferences examine the university because conference members and officials will want to generate additional revenue from TV audiences.

The second point he mentioned is that it’s university presidents who make decisions regarding conference invitations, so they’ll likely want a “like institution that takes academics seriously.” As an example, Wicker referenced the Big Ten, where every member besides Nebraska is a member of the Association of American Universities and Nebraska was a member at the time it accepted an invitation from the conference.

Lastly, he said a university’s athletic success and investment. An institution that joins a new conference doesn’t want to hurt the other members’ RPIs or chances of competing for championships, Wicker said.

“That’s what we really worked hard toward is what are the things we need to do to make ourselves most successful and to have that opportunity down the road?” Wicker said. “It’s the same on the institutional side, you know across campus, is really invested in academics and what they’re trying to do to advance the institution.

“That’s really important because presidents are making these decisions.”

Wicker credited San Diego State President Dr. Adela de la Torre for her understanding of the important of athletics and raising the university’s academic profile.

San Diego State’s goals for the future

There may come a time soon when the people in the small circle that Wicker described must decide which conference is the best fit for San Diego State and its future.

“What’s the way that we’re gonna be able to best support our student-athletes, provide them all the different things that they need?” Wicker said. “You know it’s not just uniforms and balls and bats and things like that, but it’s also nutrition, it’s mental health resources, academic resources, athletic medicine, all the things that we wrap our arms around our student-athletes.

“So it’ll be who provides us the greatest opportunity to continue providing those amenities. You look at travel and things like that. That’s something that’ll play into it as well, like-minded institutions as you think about the overall institutional relationship that you have within your conference.

“There’s a number of different things and we’ll weigh all those factors to see at the end of the day we think gives us the best opportunity to be successful and for whatever conference, if we were to move, how do we help that conference be successful as well.”

In the meantime, tread carefully when reading media reports or online rumors or speculation about conference realignment. After all, Wicker does.

“I don’t necessarily read media reports and think that they’re 100% factual,” he said. “A lot of it can be from a marketing standpoint, how do I best position? How do I make things look the best that I possibly can? But it’s having conversations with stakeholders within whatever group that may be and understanding where they’re coming from, what happening, understanding what’s going on with us, San Diego State. That’s where you get I guess the news that you can really trust.”