Tag: Pac-12 Media Rights

Pat McAfee at ESPN while network slashes staff is a Pac-12 plot point

McAfee’s contract and recent layoffs raise questions about how much $ the #Pac12 can get from ESPN in a media deal.

We have been discussing a number of sports media issues in recent weeks. Why? Because they in some way relate to the drama that will presumably come to an end in the next three weeks: The Pac-12 is widely expected to finalize a media rights deal and answer many questions about the emerging college sports marketplace.

However, the sports media landscape shifted over the weekend. ESPN announced a fresh wave of layoffs, including college football personalities such as David Pollack.

ESPN’s cost-cutting moves coincide with the network’s decision to give Pat McAfee a very lucrative contract and make him the face of ESPN’s college football programming, including a visible presence on the flagship college football pregame show “College GameDay.”

ESPN giving McAfee a bundle of money while getting rid of other expensive contracts creates a fascinating landscape in which one question emerges for the Pac-12: Just how much money is the Pac-12 in position to get from ESPN right now? Are ESPN’s finances affecting what George Kliavkoff is able to negotiate? We’ll find out soon enough.

Trojans Wire joined Awful Announcing’s Ken Fang and “Powers on Sports” podcaster Jason Powers to discuss the McAfee deal and more at the “Last Word on Sports” media podcast.

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Drama builds as Pac-12 still hasn’t finalized media rights deal

We joined the @LastWordOnSport media podcast with @BucSidelineGuy to emphasize that the #Pac12 can’t play it safe with its football rights package.

The Pac-12 and George Kliavkoff still haven’t landed the plane. They still haven’t arrived at a football media rights package which has been finalized and signed. With San Diego State and SMU wondering when a Pac-12 invitation will come, the college sports world (especially now that the College World Series is over) is focused on this specific drama relating to Pac-12 expansion and survival.

We have written multiple articles over the past few months which emphasized this basic point: The Pac-12 can’t play it safe when hammering out its football media rights package and trying to get a price point which will be close to the Big 12. The conference needs to be bold in offering attractive options to ESPN and Apple and any other interested media rights partner, creating standalone games and unique inventory which will give the conference a significant revenue boost and ensure the survival and stability of the conference.

We elaborated on these and other related points on the Last Word On Sports media podcast, hosted by T.J. Rives. The panel for this sports media discussion includes Awful Announcing’s Ken Fang and Powers on Sports podcast host Jason Powers:

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Source tells Pac-12 columnist the league will get more money than Big 12

A well-placed source told @JohnCanzanoBFT that the #Pac12 will get more $ than the #Big12. Hello, Amazon.

Big news broke on Sunday morning when the Big 12 Conference finalized its media rights package with ESPN and Fox Sports. The Big 12 earned more money per school than in its previous deal, fetching roughly $31.7 million per school for 12 member institutions once Oklahoma and Texas leave for the SEC.

As you know, Big 12 and Pac-12 fans and journalists have had plenty of vigorous debates over the past few months since USC and UCLA announced their Big Ten move on June 30. The Big 12 definitely exceeded industry expectations with this deal. Commissioner Brett Yormark clearly did well. Notions of a revenue decrease with OU and Texas gone did not materialize. Yormark refuted his critics, some of them in the Pac-12.

Now the Pac-12 and George Kliavkoff are under huge pressure to deliver a competitive package which stands up to the Big 12 and ensures that the Arizona schools, Utah, and Colorado have no temptation to leave the Pac for the Big 12.

One Pac-12 columnist thinks the conference will not only achieve that goal, but will actually fetch more money per school than the Big 12 will.

Let’s go through John Canzano’s argument and lay it out in full:

Big 12 lands new 6-year media rights deal with ESPN and Fox; what it means for Pac-12

Big news: The #Big12 inks a media rights deal. Does this mean it is about to raid the #Pac12 and bring about its extinction?

Big off-field news emerged on Sunday morning. The Big 12 Conference struck a deal with ESPN and Fox Sports, a six-year media rights package which had been a central topic of discussion in the college sports world.

The Big 12’s deal is a $380 million annual package, which translates to just under $31.7 million for each of the 12 schools which will be part of the conference after Texas and Oklahoma leave. BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston will join the eight current non-Texas, non-OU schools. It is expected that Texas and Oklahoma will not leave the Big 12 until 2025 to reduce their exit fee payments and other related costs.

Let’s go through the numbers and the meaning of the deal, as relayed by Jon Wilner and other industry insiders: