Six things we learned in a conversation with West Coast Conference commissioner Stu Jackson pertaining to its two-year affiliate membership with Oregon State and Washington State:

Basketball is the key sport in the affiliate membership. Currently, the WCC plays a double round-robin 16-game league schedule in men’s and women’s basketball. To pull that off adding Oregon State and Washington State, it would require a 20-game conference schedule. Jackson thought a 16 or 18-game schedule is more likely than 20. Which means at least one team is not going to get a Gonzaga home game, a primary money maker for WCC schools.

Jackson said maximizing NCAA tournament berths is the primary factor on determining the number of conference games. The WCC will have a framework for a basketball schedule before summer, Jackson said, but currently the priority is scheduling for fall sports.

Jackson said shortly after the Pac-12 crumbled in early August, he reached out to Oregon State, Washington State, Stanford and California “to let them know we were here if they were able to take football elsewhere.” Jackson said early on he saw a situation where Stanford and Cal found a home for football and “perhaps parked their other sports with the WCC. Obviously, that did not happen.”

One thing won’t change for Oregon State and Washington State: the conference championship is decided in Las Vegas. The WCC has held its conference tournament at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas since 2009. Jackson said the WCC-Orleans Arena deal includes the two years of OSU/WSU’s affiliate membership.

Orleans Arena is significantly smaller than Pac-12 conference tournament arenas MGM Grand Garden (women) and T-Mobile (men). But at 9,500 seats, there’s ample capacity. Another difference? The Pac-12 runs its men’s and women’s tournaments on separate weeks, while the WCC merges its tournaments, played over five days. It also gives a significant break to the top two seeds, as they currently have byes until the semifinals.

Oregon State and Washington State are paying the WCC a fee to join for two years. Jackson declined to disclose how much OSU and WSU are paying, but it’s a fee to cover the WCC’s cost to onboard those two schools into the conference. OSU and WSU become a partner in the WCC’s media rights, but it’s more about exposure than significant money to the bottom line.

It’s no secret the WCC would like to expand its nine-school conference. The WCC lost Brigham Young this school year to the Big 12. Adding OSU and WSU for two years “will help the conference, and our ultimate goal is to see more permanent institution memberships,” Jackson said. He added that the WCC isn’t opposed to a longer-term arrangement with OSU and WSU, “if that makes sense.”