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Updated: Coming Wednesday: Pac-12 TV Contract


After all the numbers and speculation we're finally going to find out the truth. The Pac-12 TV Contract is set to be announced on Wednesday.

Fox and ESPN will split football 50/50. The contract itself doesn't specify a Pac-12 TV Network, but I agree with Wilner, in the fact that I can't see 225 per year making Scott abandon the Pac-12 Network. So maybe a secondary deal in the works.

The inclusion of ESPN is a pleasant surprise. ESPN lacked interest to be the primary rights holder, but splitting with Fox still gives us a great benefit of those ESPN/ABC games.

Fox has recently said they wanted to increase their cable coverage (FX) of college football, as well as their OTA (Fox) coverage. Plopping down 225 per year is quite the investment. While I wasn't too impressed with FSN during the Iowa State game last year, it was still better than the Mtn. But it was far from what should be expected with this type of investment.

So 18.75 million per year to each team. Since they also surpassed the 170 million dollar threshold, their will be equal revenue sharing throughout the conference.

There are still questions, first one obviously being the Pac-12 Network. Another one I'm real interested in is the Mobile aspect, as Scott has said he wants to build a platform to allow for mobile viewing of games.

Of course, we all know Utah comes in at a staggered rate, of I believe 50% in '12 (or 9.375 million) and 75% in '13 (14.065 million). For those who worried about that when Utah joined the Pac-12 look at it this way: it would take roughly 7 years of the MWC conference to equal what Utah will still make over the next two years (And that's with 0% next year), and the 14 million in '13 is more than Utah would have gotten for the entire life of the MWC contract, especially with a smaller slice of the pie since the MWC expanded.

Update

Wilner now tweeting out link to New York Times reporting it's a 12 year 3 billion dollar deal (21 per school), and that ESPN and Fox will rotate championship games. As well as it including formation of Pac-12 Network, and a digital distribution channel, of which Pac-12 keeps full ownership of the network.

Honestly this is looking like a best of both worlds situation for Pac-12. Not only did they get a huge amount of money, but with ESPN being part of it, they get the prestige of being on ESPN. As Utah fans we know how much not being on ESPN hurts, especially since the highlights that gets priority on Sportscenter are usually ESPN based.

Plus owning all of the Network, means that Pac-12 is taking a major risk, but if it pays off they also get all of the (Very High) reward. And remember all these revenue numbers being talked about, don't include any possible revenue from from the Pac-12 network.

Also one more comparison on just how great this number is. USC's combined revenue distribution for the 2007 - 2008 fiscal years was 22 million.

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