Hello Huskie Nation!

While it’s seemingly always a busy time here in the athletic department, the past few months have brought a new level of activity as we made important decisions that will bring monumental change to NIU Athletics. As always, your support is greatly appreciated – and much needed – as we look forward to continuing our history of academic and athletic success.

As many of you know, those decisions were:

1. To move to the Mountain West Conference as a football member beginning in 2026;
2. To launch Huskies Ascend, a multi-pronged revenue generation effort that aims to elevate and ensure sustainability for all Huskie programs;
3. To join the Horizon League for all sports except wrestling and gymnastics beginning in 2026-27.

I firmly believe that all our decisions and these changes to our athletic department model have prepared NIU to succeed in this rapidly changing landscape of college athletics. In this edition of Frazier’s Corner, I’ve decided to focus on some of the reasoning, process and projections that led us to embrace this new athletic department model. In many respects, our story is all about preserving sustainability as it relates to supporting our student-athletes, coaches, staff, and most importantly our great university.

To use the language of today’s NCAA, you could say that we essentially put our football program in the transfer portal, de-coupling it from our other sport programs, and then doing the same with a more regional focus with our Olympic sport programs. We realize that these decisions have been significant, and the impact of this change has major ramifications for our future.

Making these decisions, especially the conference moves, involved extensive research, planning, conversations and communication with experts, with colleagues throughout the country and of course, with our new league partners. We made projections, we looked at every aspect of these moves – positive and negative – from travel to television exposure to scheduling to aligning NIU with universities that share our values and priorities.

By clicking through the attached presentation, you will see just some of the information that helped guide our decisions, which are also detailed in these Q&As from the new league announcements (Mountain West FAQ/Horizon League FAQ), and in interviews on the NIU Athletics YouTube Channel  and with Athletic Director U. While many of the financial details need to remain confidential, I can without question say that the move to the Mountain West Conference for the 2026 football season will SIGNIFICANTLY and immediately improve our financial position.  In addition, NIU will see at least a half million dollars in expense reduction on DAY ONE in the Horizon League.

As we embarked on the process of evaluating other conference and league opportunities, we noticed a lot of similarities between our current conference affiliation and other leagues that were quick to express their interest in NIU.  For the Olympic sports, one of our priorities was maintaining a consistent opportunity for automatic qualification into NCAA championships; for football, it was critical to increase our revenue from television and media agreements while maintaining access to the expanded College Football Playoff.

The Mountain West is a nationally respected brand with a tremendous competitive tradition among its members which will support our scheduling philosophy and conference championship expectations.  For our Olympic sports, the Horizon League has a long and proud history of competitive and academic excellence, all within the regional footprint of our alumni and fan base. Based on research, its history of NCAA bids, and projections following conference realignment while considering NCAA Division I legislative changes, the Horizon League is well-positioned for continued future success.

In short, we are extremely excited about the opportunities our student-athletes and programs will receive, and about the institutions, new recruiting areas and media markets we are joining in the Mountain West and Horizon League. We have enhanced the NIU brand nationally and within the region, all without compromising standards!

With these moves into the Mountain West and the Horizon League in 2026, momentum on the fundraising front behind Huskies Ascend, has been extremely positive. In just one month since the launch of our 2025 membership drive, the Huskie Athletic Fund has generated nearly $350,000 thanks to 120 donors, with one -third of them new to the HAF, with six at the Huskie Circle ($25K and above) level. Football season ticket renewals are tracking well above last year’s renewal pace with five times as many new accounts as at this time last year.

Our conference moves and expansion of our brand in football has generated new interest from sponsors both regionally and nationally.  Last September, Jersey Mike’s came on board as a sponsor with their logo added to Brigham Field. That partnership continues and excitement around the Huskies’ future is drawing similar interest. In fact, look for another announcement later this spring. We also believe our new athletic department model will bring significant interest in the form of a Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deal for all of our programs in the near future.

As you review our story on the attached PDF, keep in mind that we are in the transition process and will begin competing in both the Mountain West and the Horizon League in the fall of 2026. As I always say, there’s no such thing as standing still you either are moving forward or moving backward.  Embracing our new athletic model is something we believe strongly gives us a fighting chance to continue our academic and athletic success. While there will be challenges along the way, the support of our fans, donors, alumni and community remains absolutely critical as we move forward, ascending to the mountaintop and expanding our horizon.

Go Huskies!

Sean T. Frazier

Vice President/Director of Athletics and Recreation