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发帖数: 764 | 1 The Pac-10 agreed to a 12-year television contract with Fox and ESPN on
Tuesday worth about $3 billion, allowing the conference to quadruple its
media rights fees and start its own network.
The contract, which will begin with the 2012-13 season, will be worth about
$250 million per year, guaranteeing each of the 12 schools in the conference
about $21 million, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated
Press on condition of anonymity because the contract has not been announced.
The contract is expected to be formally announced at a news conference in
Phoenix on Wednesday.
Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott announces the splitting of NCAA college
football divisions during a news conference in San Francisco, Thursday, Oct.
21, 2010. Colorado and Utah recently accepted invitations to join the Pac-
10 in the conference's first expansion since 1978, necessitating many
changes for when the league becomes a 12-team conference next July 1.
Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scot…
AP - May 3, 10:30 am EDT
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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.
Rights to some football and men’s basketball games were not sold to Fox and
ESPN, preserving some premium property the conference can use for a Pac-12
network to go along with Olympic and other non-revenue sports, a person
close to the deal said.
Unlike the Big Ten Network, which Fox has a 49 percent ownership share in,
the Pac-12 will own its entire network. That could add difficulties in terms
of getting wide distributions on cable and satellite systems but allows the
conference to have complete control of its content and keep all the profits
if the network is as successful as the Big Ten.
The conference will also launch a digital network to show games online that
aren’t on ESPN or Fox.
The deal with Fox and ESPN was first reported by Sports Business Daily,
while The New York Times first reported details about the network.
This deal accomplishes all three goals Commissioner Larry Scott set out
heading into negotiations: increasing revenue, getting more exposure and
starting a Pac-12 network to provide an outlet to broadcast non-revenue
sports and to help brand the conference.
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 will show 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.
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
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