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The Northern Illinois University Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a $2 million entry fee for the football team to join the Mountain West Conference, making the Huskies’ move out of the Mid-American Conference complete.
The fate of the other sports still is up in the air. There is a news conference scheduled with NIU president Lisa Freeman, athletic director Sean Frazier and football coach Thomas Hammock in which more information should be made available.
Frazier told the board he’s going to manage the issues of working with the MAC to keep the non-football teams in the league. If that doesn’t work out, he said there were other options the university can explore.
“I’m a proud MAC member, and we want to make sure that we support that being our No. 1 choice at this point,” Frazier said.
The Huskies will join Air Force, Nevada, UNLV, New Mexico, San Jose State, Wyoming, UTEP and Hawaii in the new-look football league.
Board member Rita Athas asked if academics would be impacted. Freeman said while it sounds counterintuitive, it may be easier on athletes since the road games will not only be flights instead of bus trips, but on Saturdays as opposed to Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
Freeman called the move budget-positive. Frazier followed that by saying he was very, very comfortable with the move being budget-positive.
Although travel for the football team’s four road conference games per year will obviously increase, the reported payout the Huskies are getting also will increase.
NIU leaves the MAC as one of its most successful football programs this century. The Huskies have won five MAC titles since 2011, most recently in 2021 under Hammock, who just wrapped up his sixth year.
The Huskies also won the 1983 MAC title in their first stint in the league from 1975-1985. They spent the next seven seasons as an independent before joining the Big West from 1993-1995. Future Mountain West rivals San Jose State, UNLV and Nevada were part of the league at the time.
The Huskies went 8-5 this season after a double-overtime win against Fresno State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl on Dec. 23 in Boise. The Bulldogs are current Mountain West members but are headed with four other current MWC teams to reconstitute the Pac-12 in 2026.
The Mountain West is getting in NIU a school that has won at Power Four schools in the past. The Huskies pulled off one of college football’s biggest upsets this season, beating Notre Dame 16-14. It’s still the Irish’s only loss of the season as the team has reached the College Football Playoff semifinals.
Eric Wasowicz asked how comfortable Frazier was with how competitive the team can be, especially given the struggles last time out west.
Frazier said it’s clear the Huskies have the ability to compete on the national level and have proven that over the past couple of decades.
The current Mountain West TV deal expires in 2026. According to a memorandum of understanding between the remaining MWC schools posted by Nevada Sportsnet, the league will match the current rate of $3.5 million per school, using funds from other revenue sources to match if the TV deal pays out less. The agreement also has about $18 million in reserve to recruit new members – although that number was from before the addition of UTEP for football and new non-football members Grand Canyon and UC Davis.
The MAC is set to add UMass as a member starting in the 2025 season, creating a 13-team league. NIU’s exit will bring the MAC back to 12 schools in 2026 and create a league entirely in the Eastern time zone. It also will allow the league to resume the pod format it created starting in the 2024 season that replaced divisions. The format for the 2025 season and whether it will return to division play has not been disclosed.