Grand Canyon Will Join Mountain West Conference No Later Than 2026

Grand Canyon University will join the Mountain West Conference “no later than 2026,” with the school exploring the possibility of joining “as early as the second quarter of 2025” if permitted by the conference’s bylaws.

That will make the Mountain West at least a 9 member conference by 2026, with 8 full-time football members required to keep a conference in the top level of collegiate athletics. That includes six existing members: Air Force, Nevada, New Mexico, San José State, UNLV and Wyoming. Hawai’i and UTEP have also signed agreements to join the Mountain West as full members, with the expectation of that happening in 2026.

Grand Canyon is one of three non-football universities that are members of FBS (formerly 1-A) member conferences alongside Wichita State in the American and Gonzaga, who will join the Pac-12 in coming years.

Grand Canyon has had a remarkable climb up the ladder of NCAA athletics. Founded in 1951, the school almost had to close 20 years ago, triggering a controversial sale that turned it into the first for-profit Christian college in the United States. That move caused some schools, like Arizona State, to refuse to play them for years.

GCU has won 8 NAIA national championships, 10 NCAA Division II National Championships, and in 2013 moved to Division I athletics, becoming full, unrestricted members in 2017.

It has been a hectic six months for the future of Grand Canyon Athletics. The school currently competes in the WAC in most sports, but in May of this year announced that they would leave for the West Coast Conference.

The WCC doesn’t sponsor swimming & diving, Grand Canyon, Seattle, and San Diego committed to join the Big West as swimming & diving affiliates.

With the move to the Mountain West, however, Grand Canyon says that they are still working through the plan for their aquatics programs. The Mountain West currently sponsors a women’s swimming & diving championship with 9 participating teams (including orphaned Pac-12 school Washington State). But the Pac-12 is poaching away three of those schools in 2026, while Hawaii and Grand Canyon will join to leave a stable number (for now) of 8 women’s teams.

While the Mountain West does not currently sponsor a men’s championship, Grand Canyon would be the 5th men’s team when they join. The legacy Mountain West men’s programs compete in the WAC, the conference that Grand Canyon is leaving, while fellow MWC newcomers Hawaii compete in the Big West, which is where Grand Canyon was supposed to go.

The WAC, meanwhile, will have five remaining men’s swimming & diving teams and eight women’s teams without Grand Canyon and with affiliate members, pending other moves.

Mountain West Women’s Swimming & Diving Teams, 2026 (at the latest)

• Air Force
• Grand Canyon (joining)
• Hawaii (joining)
• Nevada
• UNLV
• New Mexico
• San Jose State
• Wyoming

Mountain West Men’s Swimming & Diving Teams, 2026 (at the latest), and where they currently compete

• Air Force (WAC)
• Grand Canyon (Big West)
• Hawaii (Big West)
• UNLV (WAC)
• Wyoming (WAC)

“We are incredibly appreciative of the Mountain West Conference’s interest in GCU and their recognition of the value we bring to its membership,” GCU President Brian Mueller said. “Lope Nation has grown first and foremost because of the innovative strategies and creative delivery models that enable us to provide cutting-edge academic programs both on our campus and across the country. That has created a tremendous amount of momentum that benefits our athletic programs.”

Mueller acknowledged that several conferences expressed interest in GCU but said “we felt the long-term interests of the university would best be served by joining the Mountain West Conference.”

In joining the Mountain West Conference, GCU says that it has formally declined an invitation from the West Coast Conference that would have seen the Lopes become WCC members on July 1, 2025, in spite of the conference and school previously announcing affiliation. The WCC does not sponsor football and will lose its biggest basketball property, Gonzaga, to the Pac-12.