TheMountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is acollege athletic conference with members located mostly in theWestern United States, although it has added members as far east asMassachusetts. The conference participates at theNCAA Division I level, primarily inOlympic sports that are not sponsored by a school's primary conference (such as thePac-12 andBig West, many of whose members participate in MPSF competition in at least one of its sports).
The MPSF was founded in 1992 to provide an outlet for competition in non-revenue-producingOlympic sports. The MPSF conducts championships in men'svolleyball, as well as indoortrack,gymnastics, andwater polo for both men and women. In 2010 the MPSF added women's swimming and diving, and added those sports for men in the 2011–12 season. The 2012–13 school year was the last for MPSF competition in men'ssoccer, and the 2020–21 school year was the last for MPSFwomen's lacrosse.
The conference membership varies by sport; 64 schools are MPSF members in at least one of its sponsored sports. Schools are not required to participate in MPSF competition for a sponsored sport if their primary conference sponsors a competition in that sport (e.g.Pac-12 in soccer and women's gymnastics before the conference's 2024 collapse).
Due to the Big West addition of men's and women's swimming and diving as a sponsored sport beginning in the 2024–25 school year,[1] six Big West members moved their aquatics programs to their primary conference, including three members (Bakersfield, Cal Poly, and UC Santa Barbara) for whom aquatics comprised their only MPSF teams and thus effectively left the MPSF.
The MPSF added four sports in 2024–25—the non-NCAA sport of men's rowing;[2] the fully recognized NCAA sports of women's beach volleyball and men's wrestling; and women's wrestling, then anemerging NCAA sport and since 2025–26 a fully recognized NCAA sport.[3] The men's rowing league consists entirely of Division I members (California, Gonzaga, Oregon State, San Diego, Santa Clara, Stanford, UC San Diego, and Washington). By contrast, the wrestling leagues include only Division II members: Cal Poly Humboldt (men), Menlo (both), San Francisco State (men), and Vanguard (both).
The addition of swimming & diving by the Big West left the MPSF with only two men's and four women's teams in that sport. The MPSF started a rebuilding process in that sport by announcing on February 13, 2025, that it would add seven members for swimming & diving effective in 2025–26. At the time of announcement, all were housing swimming & diving in theWestern Athletic Conference, which is rumored to be dropping the sport after the 2024–25 season. Six of the new members sponsor only the women's sport—Idaho, New Mexico State, Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado (returning to MPSF women's swimming & diving after a 13-year absence), Utah Tech, and UTRGV. The other new member, California Baptist, sponsors the sport for both sexes.[4][5] However, California Baptist will only compete in the MPSF in the 2025–26 season, as it will become a full Big West member in July 2026.[6] The men's volleyball league lost Grand Canyon after the spring 2025 season; the school downgraded the sport from varsity to club status.[7] The MPSF added women's field hockey as a sponsored sport in 2025–26 with Delaware and UC Davis as members.
In 2025, the MPSF added its first member outside of the NCAA, as well as its first international member, when theUniversity of British Columbia announced it would join the MPSF. UBC primarily plays as a member ofU Sports, the Canadian governing body for college athletics, with a select few of its sports not sponsored by U Sports instead affiliated with theNAIA. While Canadian universities are currently not allowed to apply for membership within NCAA Division I as of 2025, UBC announced it would join the MPSF for the sport of men's rowing, which is not sponsored by the NCAA.[8]
Al Beaird was the first executive director of the MPSF for 24 years, from 1998 to 2021. Foti Mellis became the second executive director on June 1, 2021. Mellis was a Senior Associate Athletic Director at the University of California.
^JoiningPac-12 Conference for women's gymnastics, SUU's only MPSF sport, in 2026.
^Current affiliation; does not necessarily match affiliation(s) during a school's MPSF tenure.
^abThough initially slated to play in the MPSF in the 2025-26 season, they instead accepted an invitation to play in the Big 12 for the 2025-26 season.
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation sponsors championship competition in six fully NCAA-sanctioned men's sports, six fully NCAA-sanctioned women's sports, one coeducational NCAA sport, and two non-NCAA sports (one each for men and women).[11] The MPSF dropped men's soccer after the 2012 season. The moves of Denver (all sports) and New Mexico (soccer only) to other conferences left the MPSF with six soccer members, but all six would soon leave due to moves by the Western Athletic Conference. MPSF soccer member Seattle was already in the WAC, and another MPSF soccer school, CSU Bakersfield, was already committed to join the WAC in 2013. Because the WAC dropped football after the 2012 season due toa near-complete membership turnover, it needed to add another men's sport to maintain its Division I status. To that end, it invited the four remaining MPSF soccer schools to join them; all accepted, and the WAC began sponsoring men's soccer in 2013–14.[12]
In October 2015, Arizona State announced that it would elevate its club team in women's lacrosse to full varsity status starting in the 2017–18 school year (2018 season), which will give the Pac-12 six women's lacrosse schools. This number is required by league bylaws for official sponsorship of a sport, and is also the number of teams required for a conference to be an automatic NCAA tournament qualifier. This led the Pac-12 to announce that all of its women's lacrosse teams would leave the MPSF for the new Pac-12 lacrosse league for the 2018 season. MPSF women's lacrosse continued to operate through the 2021 season, though it would lose its automatic NCAA tournament bid after the 2019 season.[13]
The next major change in conference membership came in January 2016, when theGolden Coast Conference, a water polo-only league that previously operated only a women's competition, announced it would add a men's division effective with the 2016–17 season. The GCC took six of the 10 members of the MPSF men's water polo league, leaving the MPSF with only the four Pac-12 members that sponsor the sport.[14]
On May 31, 2016, the Big West Conference announced that it would begin sponsoring men's volleyball in the 2017–18 school year (2018 season). The Big West men's volleyball league launched with full members Long Beach State, Cal State Northridge, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and Hawai'i, plus associate member UC San Diego (which joined the Big West full-time in July 2020). UC San Diego left the federation with the launch of Big West men's volleyball, but the other Big West members remain in the MPSF in other sports.[15] California Baptist also exited the MPSF after dropping its only conference sport of men's volleyball shortly after the 2017 season, and Cal State Bakersfield (now being rebranded athletically as Bakersfield) left the MPSF after dropping its last remaining conference sport of women's water polo at the same time.[16]
It was announced in August 2021 that the MPSF would add fencing, a sport with a single coeducational NCAA team championship, to the conference as its tenth sport.[17]
It was announced in September 2021 that the MPSF would add women's artistic swimming to the conference as the eleventh sport.[18]
On November 9, 2023, the MPSF announced that it would add beach volleyball, a women-only sport at the NCAA level, for the 2025 season (2024–25 school year). The inaugural membership in that sport consisted mainly of schools that left thePac-12 Conference, which sponsored beach volleyball, after 2023–24: California, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, and Washington. The only member not coming from the Pac-12 was Grand Canyon.[19] The following month, the MPSF announced that Saint Mary's, which had been an MPSF member in women's lacrosse before the school dropped the sport in 2017, had returned to the conference in women's indoor track & field.[20] The MPSF later announced it would also add the non-NCAA sport of men's rowing, plus men's and women's wrestling, in 2024–25.
The MPSF announced in February 2025 that it would add four beach volleyball members and seven swimming & diving members in 2025–26. Of the new swim/dive members, six field only women's teams and one fields teams for both men and women.[4][5][21] However, the school that fields teams for both sexes, California Baptist, will only compete in the MPSF for one season, after which it becomes a full Big West member.[6]
It was announced in September 2025 that the MPSF would add field hockey as its sixteenth sponsored sport in time for the 2025 fall season. Two members will participate in the MPSF's inaugural season: existing MPSF member UC Davis and newcomer Delaware.[22]
Two aquatics disciplines are sponsored under the aquatics section, with swimming & diving sponsored for both men and women since 2010–11 and the women-only discipline of artistic swimming added in 2021–22. A third discipline, open water swimming, was added for both men and women in 2023–24, but is not sponsored as a conference sport, instead being a de facto national championship meet open to all NCAA members. The MPSF was the first NCAA conference to sponsor open water swimming.[23]
In June 2023, the Big West announced the addition of men's and women's swimming and diving as a sponsored sport beginning in the 2024–25 school year.[1] As a result, six Big West members moved their aquatics programs to their primary conference, including three members (Bakersfield, Cal Poly, and UC Santa Barbara) who were only MPSF members in aquatics and thus effectively left the MPSF.
The MPSF will lose one member (San Diego to the Big West[24]) and add seven members in swimming & diving in 2025–26. Of the new members, six are joining for the women's sport only and the other with both men's and women's teams. One of these schools had previously housed the women's sport in the MPSF.[4][5]
^abcAir Force, UNLV, and Wyoming have previously been MPSF members in men's swimming & diving from 2011–2013.
^abcAir Force, UNLV, and Wyoming will only compete in the MPSF in the 2025–26 season; they will move their programs to their primary conference, theMountain West Conference, when it begins sponsorship of men's swimming and diving in July 2026.[25]
^California Baptist will only compete in the MPSF in the 2025–26 season; in July 2026, it becomes a full member of theBig West Conference, which sponsors swimming & diving for both sexes.[6]
^Northern Colorado had previously been an MPSF member in women's swimming & diving from 2010–2012.
^UTRGV has multiple campuses within its service area of theLower Rio Grande Valley, but the athletic administration is based at the Edinburg campus it inherited from its athletic predecessor of theUniversity of Texas–Pan American.
The MPSF currently has four members that participate in men's gymnastics and four for women's. One of the current women's gymnastics members, UC Davis, will join theMountain West Conference, which sponsors that sport, in 2026. However, the Aggies may stay in MPSF women's gymnastics because the MW will lose two of its current four women's gymnastics members to the reconfiguredPac-12 Conference in 2026, making future MW sponsorship of the sport uncertain.
Men's and women's indoor track & field were introduced for the 1992–93 season as one of the conference's inaugural sports. Conference records before 1999 are incomplete.
^Cal State Northridge's men's and women's teams departed in 1996 before rejoining in 2001 but then departed again in 2005 to rejoin for a second time in 2007.
^The Oregon State women's team left in 2020 when the Pac-12 began sponsoring indoor track. OSU rejoined the MPSF following the 2024 collapse of the Pac-12.
^ Portland's men's team departed in 1996 and the women's team departed in 1999 before both teams rejoined in 2014.
^UC Davis sponsored a men's team that competed in the MPSF from 2004-2005.
^UC Davis' women's team departed in 2005 before rejoining in 2017.
^UC Irvine's women's team departed in 2007 before rejoining in 2010.
^UC Riverside's men's and women's teams departed in 2002 before rejoining in 2016.
^The Washington State men's and women's teams left in 2020 when the Pac-12 began sponsoring indoor track. Both rejoined the MPSF following the 2024 collapse of the Pac-12.
Men's volleyball was introduced for the 1993 season (1992–93 school year) as one of the conference's inaugural sports. The MPSF added beach volleyball in the 2025 season (2024–25 school year). The MPSF added the sport in the wake of thecollapse of thePac-12 Conference, which saw 10 of its 12 members leave for other conferences after the 2023–24 school year. Of the 10 departing schools, nine sponsor beach volleyball. Three left for theBig 12 Conference, which announced it would start sponsoring beach volleyball in 2024–25.[28] The other six, which joined either theAtlantic Coast Conference or theBig Ten Conference, made up almost all of the inaugural MPSF beach volleyball membership. California, Stanford, UCLA, and USC were already MPSF members in other sports, and Oregon and Washington were returning MPSF members. The only inaugural beach volleyball member not arriving from the Pac-12 is Grand Canyon.
After the spring 2025 season, the MPSF added five more beach volleyball members—Florida State, LSU, San Jose State, South Carolina, and Texas. All but San Jose State departed the disbandingCoastal Collegiate Sports Association.[21] However, it was announced on September 24, 2025, that Florida State and South Carolina would instead compete in theBig 12 Conference for the 2025–26 season, rather than the MPSF.[29] Its men's division lost Grand Canyon, which downgraded the sport to club status,[7] but added Jessup and UC Merced, both transitioning from the NAIA to NCAA Division II.
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation has won 100 NCAA titles in seven sports. UCLA has won 25 national titles. Stanford has won 20 titles. USC has won 16 titles. Oregon has won 12 titles. Oklahoma has won nine titles. California has won six titles. UC Irvine has won four titles. Arizona State and Brigham Young have won three titles. Pepperdine has won two titles. The MPSF has won every men's and women's water polo NCAA title since the inception of the conference.
^"WAC Adds Men's Soccer" (Press release). Western Athletic Conference. January 9, 2013. Archived fromthe original on January 19, 2013. RetrievedApril 20, 2013.
^"Flippin' Birds Find a New Conference". Cedar City, UT: Southern Utah University Athletics. September 21, 2023.Archived from the original on November 10, 2023. RetrievedSeptember 23, 2023.
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