Pac-12 Bound Bulldogs

Q&A with athletics director Garrett Klassy as Fresno State prepares to join new conference

By Eddie Hughes (’05)

Garrett Klassy (right) was formally introduced to the community as the new Fresno State director of athletics at a press conference on campus on June 28.

In a landmark decision that marks a new chapter for Fresno State, the Pac-12 Conference Board of Directors unanimously voted to admit Fresno State, along with Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State, Utah State and Gonzaga (non-football member) into the Pac-12 Conference.

The addition of these six institutions will take effect on July 1, 2026, with competition beginning in the 2026-27 academic year. This expansion unites Fresno State with Oregon State and Washington State University to drive innovation and growth in both athletics and academics.

“Joining the Pac-12 Conference is a transformative moment for Fresno State,” says Garrett Klassy, Fresno State’s first-year director of athletics. “This move not only elevates our national profile but also brings tremendous opportunities for our student-athletes to compete at the highest level. We are committed to upholding the values and traditions of both Fresno State and the Pac-12 while embracing the innovative future ahead. Together with our new conference peers, we will continue to grow, succeed and lead in both athletics and academics. The Red Wave is ready for this historic journey.”

Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould and the conference board of directors strategically evaluated each university’s application using five prioritized measures and established criteria, which included academics and athletics performance; media and brand evaluation; commitment to athletics success; geography and logistics; and culture and student-athlete welfare.

“For over a century, the Pac-12 Conference has been recognized as a leading brand in intercollegiate athletics,” Gould says. “We will continue to pursue bold, cutting-edge opportunities for growth and progress to best serve our member institutions and student-athletes.

“An exciting new era for the Pac-12 Conference begins today.”

This alignment of values and aspirations positions Fresno State to elevate its impact on the national stage. “Fresno State has always been a university of opportunity and grit, and joining the Pac-12 Conference reflects our dynamic vision for the future of our Valley,” says Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval. “This historic move both enhances our competitiveness on the field and further amplifies our academic prestige, advancing our mission of empowering students to succeed and lead.”

With Oregon State and Washington State continuing to compete as part of the Pac-12 through the 2025-26 season, the new eight-member alliance sets the stage for future conference expansion and innovations that will shape the collegiate landscape for decades to come.

Fresno State Magazine sat down for an exclusive interview with Klassy, who began his role as Fresno State athletics director in July, to discuss the Bulldogs’ move to the Pac-12 as well as his vision for the department.

Fresno State Magazine: What does it mean for Fresno State get an invitation to the Pac-12?

Garrett Klassy: Going to an iconic conference like the Pac-12, that has been around for over 100 years, immediately enhances the brand of not just our athletic department but our entire university. Yes, athletics is going to benefit immensely playing against elite competition week in and week out, but I also believe academics is going to benefit through more opportunities like the potential for increased enrollment and new grant opportunities. Being able to partner with this group of schools is going
to help the whole university succeed.

FSMag: What will it take to compete at this level?

Fresno State director of athletics Garrett Klassy has wasted no time meeting people in the community and on campus, including his participation in Red Friday, a faculty and staff rally the day before the homecoming game.

Klassy: As we look at our overarching goals as a university, and as an athletic department, we want to compete against the best, but one of the things I want to caution the Red Wave about is this is just the start of the journey. We’re not going to sit here and just celebrate because we’re members of the Pac-12 Conference. That means we have more work to do because we’re going against schools with much larger budgets than us, and we need to make sure we give our teams the resources they need to win championships. That’s part of the challenge, but it’s also an opportunity.

Where we’re situated budgetarily, we’re going to have to work really hard to find unique revenue streams outside of the typical buckets of ticket sales, donations, corporate sponsorships and TV revenue, and we’re going to have to figure out how we can monetize all the assets we have, including our facilities and other areas. The revenue piece is going to be a huge part of it.

FSMag: What made Fresno State such an attractive addition?

Klassy: The Fresno State brand was strong way before I arrived here. The reality is the TV networks, the conferences, they want to partner with the best brands in the country. It’s really the people of the Valley that are the reason why we got into the Pac-12 Conference. It’s the coaches, the incredible student-athletes, and the incredible fan support. Attendance matters, TV viewership matters, and all those things helped us get into the Pac-12.

FSMag: What’s your vision for Fresno State athletics?

Klassy: To be an elite athletic department, we want to look at three areas. We want to provide a world-class education for our student-athletes, which Fresno State provides. We want to be able to win championships at a high level, and we want to be able to give back to the community by producing amazing leaders and creating an environment where we’re preparing student-athletes for the next 40 years of their lives.

FSMag: How does athletics fit into the university’s overall mission?

Klassy: I’ve seen it, I’ve witnessed it firsthand, what athletics can do for a university. Universities invest in athletics for two reasons – one it’s to build the brand of the university as a marketing tool to increase enrollment, and the other piece is it creates an incredible student experience for all students on campus. There are a lot of students who come to Fresno State because they want to come to these home football games six or seven times a year. That adds to the student experience. We want to make sure we’re putting a winning product on the field so it adds value to the brand of the university.

FSMag: How important are football and men’s basketball to your overall goals?

Klassy: With the landscape changing in the NCAA environment, those sports are going to become increasingly more important because those are our two revenue-producing sports, so we need those sports to compete and win at the highest level. Not just for the visibility, but the reality is the revenue that those two sports create allows us to fund our Olympic sports at a high level, too. We want to be a broad-based athletic program where all of our sports succeed, and we can’t do that unless football and basketball are winning at a high level.

With the history of our Olympic sports here, primarily with softball and baseball both winning national championships, it goes to show the Valley that we can win national championships here in any sport that we want to. But that doesn’t happen by just wishing and hoping. We have to fund those programs in a competitive manner. Coach Natalie Benson in water polo is one of the best water polo coaches in the country. We have amazing coaches in all of our sports. At the end of the day, for me being the leader of this athletic department, I want to make sure we have a culture of competitive excellence. And you can’t create a culture of competitive excellence if you don’t have the mindset that we can win every single game we compete in. And how do you have that mindset? By recruiting high-level athletes and giving the coaches the infrastructure and resources they need to compete at the highest level. That’s what we’re going to focus on for our Olympic sports.

FSMag: For Fresno State to rise to the next level, it’s going to take resources and investment. How do you tackle that?

Under coach Natalie Benson (left), Fresno State has won four straight conference championships and advanced to the NCAA tournament all four years. The Bulldogs finished with a program-best 21 wins this past season.

Klassy: First we’re going to look at what core revenue opportunities exist. Are we maximizing everything from a ticket sales standpoint? Are we maximizing all our resources and inventory from corporate sponsorships? Do we have a productive plan for the Bulldog Foundation for people giving back? Are we showing them the impact they’re making? Are we articulating the vision? Are we making the asks, are we doing everything we can do? Those are the things we can control that are right in front of us.

But part of the reason that I’m here is because I have a deep background in revenue generation and sometimes you have to look at non-traditional means. Before you can look at non-traditional means, you have to max out your traditional revenue streams. We need to look at how we utilize all of our facilities. It’s not just how we are utilizing Valley Children’s Stadium. How are we maximizing usage of the baseball stadium, the softball stadium? Those things all have to be explored. We’re always going to be aggressive in looking at new revenue generating opportunities.

FSMag: What are your first impressions of Fresno and the Central Valley?

Klassy: It’s not lost on me the great responsibility we have here as an athletic department and especially myself as a leader. Fresno State is the people’s passion in this Valley.
For a lot of people, the most important time of the year is when they get to come to our football games. Fresno is so much like where I grew up in Wisconsin. You had sports and you had agriculture. There’s obviously more than that, but those are two of the priorities. This is a midwestern town dropped in the middle of California.

It’s a huge responsibility, and I love that challenge because every day I wake up, I see Bulldog flags all over the place, Bulldog license plates all over the place, and I like the fact that Fresno State is the economic driver for the Valley and it’s the great unifier of the Valley. To live somewhere so diverse as the Valley, and for six Saturdays out of the year, everyone comes together and everybody is family and everyone sets their differences aside, and everyone is there for one common goal and that’s to watch Fresno State win.