Larry Scott hits home run with Pac-12 media deal

Good news everyone! The Pac-12 media rights deal is done, and the conference looks to have hit the jackpot! Expected to be officially announced soon, the deal will reportedly bring in over $225 million annually for the next 12 years, for a total of approximately… THREE BILLION DOLLARS!!!

That’s a major upgrade from the current deal, worth only $45 million a year. It also blows past the $170 million threshold that would have seen USC and UCLA receive an extra $2 million cut, as part of the agreement to get them to sign on to equal revenue sharing. Anyway, here are the details as we know them now:

• Rights will be co-owned by Fox and ESPN/ABC.
• Games will be shown on ABC, ESPN, Fox, Fox Sports, FSN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.
• The Pac-12 championship game will rotate between Fox and ABC.
• The Pac-12 will create its own network, a la the Big Ten Network, but will be the sole owner. (Fox owns a 49% share of the Big Ten network.)
• The Pac-12 will create its own digital channel a la ESPN3.

The deal is great for all member schools, but particularly so for the smaller revenue schools like WSU and Oregon State (and insanely good for new member Utah, although they won’t get full revenue sharing for a few years).

So what’s next for Scott and the conference? Well, according to Jon Wilner, who has been following the media deal issue closely, it’s even more expansion, but not the kind that adds more teams. No, instead it would be expansion of the Pac-12 media brand internationally along the Pacific Rim. Not necessarily a huge revenue generator, but a big deal for exposure, especially in the Olympic sports and academically for the various schools.