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May 3, 2011 in Sports
Pac-10 signs college sports’ richest TV deal
Conference agrees to 12-year deal with Fox, ESPN
SAN FRANCISCO — The Pac-10, soon to be the Pac-12, agreed to a 12-year television contract with Fox and ESPN on Tuesday that will more than triple its media rights fees and be the most valuable for any conference in college sports.
The contract, which will begin with the 2012-13 season, will be worth more than $225 million per year, three people familiar with the deal told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the contract has not been announced. The deal was first reported by Sports Business Daily.
The Pac-10 made less than $60 million in media rights this past season but became the latest conference to take advantage of the escalating market for college sports on television.
The ACC recently signed a deal for $155 million a year and the Big 12 reached a deal with Fox that made its total annual package worth about $130 million. The Pac-10, which will be renamed the Pac-12 in July with the additions of Utah and Colorado, topped those deals, as well as the $205 million the SEC gets and the $220 million paid to the Big Ten.
Under this deal, Fox and ESPN will split the rights to college football games. ESPN will air its games on cable as well as ABC and Fox showing its games on its broadcast network, basic cable network FX and on the Fox Sports Net regional networks.
Men’s basketball games will be split mostly between ESPN and Fox Sports Net, with ESPN also getting rights to some Olympic sports that will likely be aired on ESPNU.
The two entities will alternate showing the Pac-12 football championship game and the men’s basketball tournament. Fox, which will air the inaugural football title game this season, will have the first football championship under this contract in 2012, with ESPN getting the men’s basketball tournament later that season, a person familiar with the deal said.
Rights to some football and men’s basketball games have not been given out yet, giving the conference the opportunity to start its own network if it chooses. Along with increasing rights fees and exposure as this deal does, commissioner Larry Scott also went into negotiations looking to start a Pac-12 network to provide an outlet to broadcast non-revenue sports and to help brand the conference.
Finalizing a media rights deal is the latest step in the transformation of the conference under Scott, who took over from Tom Hansen in July 2009.
Scott spearheaded last year’s expansion effort and then got the schools to agree to an equal revenue sharing plan and aggregate all of their media rights at the conference level.
That set the stage for the television negotiations, which began in earnest April 1. While Comcast/NBC was an aggressive bidder and Turner Sports also was interested, incumbents Fox and ESPN won out.
This deal means full revenue sharing will kick in as soon as this contract begins. As part of an agreement to give up their historically larger share of television revenues, Southern California and UCLA were each to receive a $2 million premium any year that the media rights did not reach $170 million.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Teams play odds 
CougarGold on May 03 at 9:56 a.m.
Great news for WSU, the biggest beneficiary of the new revenue sharing plan! This will increase their athletic budget by about $12 million per year, approximately 40%. That’s huge! I know Bill Moos has been working hard on this issue and as the dean of Pac-12 Athletic Directors, he is earning his keep. Excellent news for parity in the Pac-12!
codym on May 03 at 10:06 a.m.
Can the spokesman find out what this does this do for viewing WSU football on TV? Last year there were a lot of games on FSN and Versus, but now that FSN is “Root” and Versus is not in the contract I wonder how many Cougar games will actually make it onto TV.
mikewsu on May 03 at 10:12 a.m.
codym, the goal is to have all football and basketball games aired on a Fox or ESPN network, with non-revenue sports being showcased on the Pac-12 Network channel/digital offering.
“Games will be shown on Fox, ABC, FX, Fox Sports Net, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.”
I also see the deal being widely reported as $250mil/year, not $225mil/year?
Equal revenue sharing should be great for WSU!
flutieflakes on May 03 at 10:34 a.m.
This is great for the Pac 12 and particularly small market teams like WSU & OSU. Anything to get them out of that gawd awful contract they had with FSN.
flutieflakes on May 03 at 10:49 a.m.
In fact, I might go as far as to say that this is the best WSU-related news of my lifetime, which has featured two Pac 10 championships and two high draft picks. They’re going from what, $4-6M to about $21M? This is certainly a game changer for the Cougs.
I don’t know if Moos is one of the causes or simply a beneficiary of this contract, but congratulations!
Ninch on May 03 at 12:36 p.m.
Wow! But I am feeling a bit old because I remember when it was the PAC-8.
Fractal on May 03 at 12:59 p.m.
Outstanding news for the entire Pac-12, but especially WSU. Doesn’t mean that donors are off the hook, though - we still need to do what we can to help the program. Good times are ahead!
CougarGold on May 03 at 1:11 p.m.
Ninch: heh……..me too. Arizona and Arizona State are still the newbies so far as I’m concerned.
eagleproducer on May 03 at 3:24 p.m.
It’s about time. Maybe some of the writers and voters on the East coast will finally start watching our teams and adjusting their biases westward.
ericdx on May 03 at 4:35 p.m.
I am not that old, and I still remember the PAC 8, as well as games being played in Albi Stadium.
At least Arizona and Arizona State are not the “New kids in conference” any more.
mdriftmeyer on May 03 at 6:11 p.m.
This is huge news. The Martin Stadium plan is now out with a whole new Mall on the center of campus with the new College of Architecture and Engineering Zone built east of French Ad.