The ever-changing landscape of Division I athletics felt another seismic shift on Friday.
Missouri Valley Conference [MVC] member Missouri State University announced Friday it's accepted an offer to join Conference USA [CUSA] starting in the fall 2025. That conference plays in the highest level of Division I football, the Football Bowl Subdivision [FBS].
The Missouri Valley Football Conference is in the lower-tier Football Championship Subdivision [FCS].
Missouri State reportedly received a $5 million anonymous gift to defray some of the cost of moving to Conference USA. That conference has a much larger geographic footprint, spanning much of the U.S. eastern and southern coasts, from North Carolina to New Mexico.
Missouri State Director of Athletics Kyle Moats said the university expects to recoup the added costs through additional revenue by joining an FBS conference.
"This move will absolutely open doors for us," Moats said in a statement. "For our student-athletes, they will have less bus travel and more flights which will get them back to campus in a safer and more-timely manner."
The league is expected to grow to 12 schools with Kennesaw State [Georgia] scheduled to join in July, and Delaware scheduled to join in July 2025.
Missouri State, which sponsors 17 Division I sports programs, has the largest athletics budget among the seven public schools in the MVC at nearly $30 million in 2023, according to the USA Today’s NCAA finance database [private school budgets are not listed].
Illinois State University ranked a close second in spending at $29.9 million. The five other public institutions — Illinois-Chicago, Indiana State, Murray State, Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois — are each under $20 million.
Missouri State’s current athletics budget places them in the bottom third of 12 current and soon-to-be Conference USA schools.
The move will leave the MVC — and the Missouri Valley Football Conference — with 11 schools each.
The Valley has had several new additions in recent years as other schools have left. The most recent additions came in 2022 when Illinois-Chicago, Belmont and Murray State were added. Those moves followed Loyola’s jump to the Atlantic 10.
MVC officials have not said how or whether they will seek to replace Missouri State.
“Missouri State University has been a valued member of the Missouri Valley Conference since 1990 and has had countless success stories during in its 34 years in the Conference,” MVC commissioner Jeff Jackson said in a statement. “We wish Missouri State all the best as it begins its next chapter in 2025-26.”
