The obvious reasons are that it is a large Cal State school with a nice basketball program in the key recruiting territory for all PAC programs. The not-so-obvious reason is that Long Beach once had a decent football program. Of the CA schools Sac State is getting most of the attention right now because they are making the most noise and they've got a stadium plan put together. But if Long Beach brought back football the PAC would fall all over themselves to get them into the conference. And it could be that Long Beach follows the UConn model. UConn was in the Big East for decades for basketball. So when they decided to join the FBS they got to jump the line in front of other football programs and got to join a BCS conference simply because they were already a member in the other sports. If Long Beach could somehow get a basketball invite to the PAC, they would have a golden ticket into the best G5 football conference if they were to bring the program back.