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After the nascent Pac-12 landed a media rights deal with ESPN and FOX, reportedly valued at $3 billion, that will keep member schools in clover until 2025, the conference is reportedly looking to bring on tech giants Apple and Google.
Pacific Takes has an extensive report on the Pac-12's new digital outpost, which appears to the pre-transhumanist eye to be composed of bricks and stuff.
On the heels of a gigantic media rights deal with Fox and ESPN, the Pac-12 has announced the details of its newly formed conference network. The Pac-12 Network is set to broadcast a slate of programming that includes football inventory held back from the primary media rights deal, as well as Olympic sports and other Pac-12-centric programming. In order to form the network, the Pac-12 pulled in the services of Comcast, Bright House and Cox and Time Warner to form six regional networks, as well as a national network.
Pac-12 football games will be assigned to Fox, ESPN and the Pac-12 Network through a lottery of sorts, with each of the networks rotating the first picks on a week-to-week basis. Between ESPN, Fox and the Pac-12 Network, all football and men's basketball games will be broadcast on television. The Pac-12 made a conscious decision to hold inventory out of the primary deal in an effort to give the Pac-12 Network a head start and make it more enticing to networks and distributors.
The Pac-12's decision to create multiple networks, including regional channels that cover the six travel partners in the conference, should allow for easier distribution and locally-aimed programming. By partnering with multiple cable networks, the Pac-12 Network should also find it easier to gain widespread distribution, a common problem for new networks trying to get off the ground.
The Pac-12 will not, however, hand over the conference network to the various cable companies involved. Instead, it will keep ownership over the newly formed networks, and keep all the equity as part of the deal. The Pac-12 will own and control the newly formed national and regional networks over the life of the deal. The Pac-12 Network will launch in August 2012, just in time for the start of next year's football season.
For more college sports, stay tuned to SB Nation's NCAA football and NCAA basketball hubs, and browse our huge list of team blogs.
The Pac-12 is going to drag you kicking and screaming into the future, and in the end you will thank it. The Mercury News' Jon Wilner reports the expanding conference is "exploring partnerships" with Apple and Google about a potential online-only media distribution outlet.
Larry Scott and friends recently put together a $3 billion media deal with ESPN and FOX, but the next step is to figure out how to start up a conference-specific network. As Wilner spells it, that could be a revamped channel, a whole new channel or a whole new reality for which you are not prepared.
It's times like these you really realize how valuable a school like Stanford is. In addition to Directors' Cup dominance and a darn fine football team, the Cardinal also offer connections to some of the most revolutionary people in tech and media.
Though the Pac-12 may want to consider soon adding Portland's Reed College, which Steve Jobs credits with helping him develop his acclaimed aesthetic sense. Reed appears to have a strong ultimate frisbee program.
For more college sports, stay tuned to SB Nation's NCAA football and NCAA basketball hubs, and browse our huge list of team blogs.
Larry Scott played coy with exact figures during Wednesday's press conference on the Pac-12 media rights deal, but the San Jose Mercury News got more exact figures out of him shortly thereafter. (Does doing math in public make Larry Scott nervous?) The actual value sticker on the arrangement is, in fact, $3 billion, not the $2.7 billion first reported. Individual schools will rake in an average of just under $21 million, rather than $22 million. And the NBC/Comcast hydra has only itself to blame for losing out on the conference's allegiance. Scandalous!
Pac-12-to-be fan reactions to Wednesday's announced conference media rights deal with ESPN and FOX ranged from respectfully skeptical to over the moon. Below, a roundup of assessments from current Pac-10 program communities:
• California Golden Blogs calls the new setup "unbelievably awesome in every way."
• Building the Dam considers the logistical hurdles still ahead for the eventual Pac-12 network.
• Bruins Nation lauds the beginning of a grand conference makeover.
• Rule of Tree parses how this deal will affect Stanford fans (and Stanford fans' cable bills).
• SB Nation Arizona wonders if the Sun Devils' cut of the cash can be used to bring back non-revenue sports cut by ASU.
• Arizona Desert Swarm looks forward to no more conflicts between high school basketball and their beloved alma mater's games.
• CougCenter anticipates a "facilities boom" at Washington State.
• And Conquest Chronicles wonders why the Southern California schools left so much on the table.
Another piece of the Pac-12's golden media rights puzzle falls oh-so-casually into place: The deal comes at an ideal time for programs that have been overspending on their allowances.
The new conference doesn't officially exist until July, but the way they're branding this thing up we suppose it's time to start calling the Pac-10 the Pac-12. The conference has more than earned a title bump, with today's announced media rights deal making membership the most lucrative gig in college sports history. A 12-year deal with ESPN and FOX, running through the 2024-2025 season, will reportedly net the conference a total of around $3 billion, pushing about $21 million a year to each program.
The deal was announced by a justifiably-preening Larry Scott, along with reps from the two networks, at the Arizona Biltmore Wednesday morning. (Quoth the Fox guy, "There are times when it makes sense to get together.") Some interesting details you may have heard, and some were new to all of us. A quick roundup:
• Changes are in store for both networks' coverage of Pac-10 sports. For example, FOX will begin showing college football games on FX, as previously reported, while ESPN will undertake a new Saturday late-night game broadcast, ending an era of West Coast ball being relegated to channels East Coast fans don't get.
• The two networks will implement a draft-like system for sharing game coverage, and will take turns broadcasting the conference championship game.
• A dedicated Pac-12 network is a stated goal, but far more interesting is the establishment of a new company called Pac-12 Media Enterprises, which will develop the eventual conference channel, individual digital networks for universities, and Pac-12 Media Labs, dedicated to "innovating and developing ideas for sports broadcasting." For fans of sports and technology alike, it's going to be an exciting few years harnessing technical innovation out of the American West.
Pac-12 fans and fans-to-be will crow, and more than one major conference may wish it had grabbed for a larger brass ring, but it's hard not to see this development as a win for the sport, full stop. What this deal means at its heart is more college football on television, and that's never, ever a bad thing.
Pac-12 Network, The Big Ten Network Of The Future
by Jason Kirk
The soon-to-be first college conference network to land on the moon is aiming for serious profits:
Feb 16 12:57p