What’s New in the Pac-12 Football Television Contract?
By Brian Spaen
Beginning this season, ESPN and FOX Sports Media Group will enter a 12-year contract as rightsholders to broadcast select football games. Along with those networks, the Pac-12 Conference will start its own network this fall.
A main difference from previous seasons will be the transition of regional broadcasts from various sports networks to the six regional channels and one national channel of the Pac-12 Network. So, that means those Oregon games on CSN Northwest, UCLA games on Prime Ticket, or Colorado games on Root Sports Rocky Mountain that were exclusive to those networks will no longer be shown. Instead, those games will either be on the national Pac-12 Network or one of the six regional networks.
For those of you wondering what that means for DirecTV customers who were able to access all the games with the Sports Pack, it’s unknown for sure. DirecTV still hasn’t announced that they will be carrying the new network. My guess will be that the satellite distributor will pick up the national network and will show any regional games on overflow channels. This is similar to how the Big Ten Network is set up.
The Ducks have two games on the Pac-12 Network, both non-conference games. Unless there’s a rule where the Pac-12 Network needs to show a conference game featuring every team, Oregon will be picked up by either ESPN or FOX for all of their conference games.
Here’s a list of all the rights for ESPN and FOX when it comes to selecting games, courtesty of Matt Sarzyniak. A list of all the currently selected Pac-12 games is also on that page.
ESPN Rights Notes
- Two games on ABC
- Twenty games on ESPN Networks (ESPN, ESPN2 & ESPNU)
- Of the twenty games on ESPN Networks, up to four games on Thursday nights & up to four games on Friday night.
- Up to four of the twenty games can air on ESPNU
- Most ESPN/ESPN2 Saturday games will air at 10pm ET
FSMG Rights Notes
- Eight games on FOX
- Fourteen games on F/X
- Four of the eight games on FOX will air in primetime.
FOX and ESPN will alternate airing the Pac-12 Championship Game. In even-numbered seasons, FOX will air the game. ESPN will air it in odd-numbered years.
The conference has also created the Pac-12 Networks, a mix of six regional networks and a national networks, to air all other games.
What’s nice about the new set-up is the Pac-12 is no longer going through regional sports networks (FSN, CSN, Root Sports, etc.). All the Pac-12 football broadcasts can be found on FOX, FX, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU (for the first time), ABC, and Pac-12 Networks.
Brian Spaen is the lead editor for Autzen Zoo, follow the site on Facebook and Twitter. Read his other work on the lacrosse blog Watson Talk or get to know him more at The World of Santa Destroy.