So Larry Scott released the Pac-12 football TV deal, and it's as predictably sweet as you can possibly imagine. I went over the specifics of the Pac-12 football deal at SB Nation Bay Area, but they are worth rehashing here. You can view the official announcement over at the Pac-12 website.
- The number of games that FOX and ESPN will televise as a combined group are the same (44 games on the old contract, 44 games on the new). What changes is the exposure, with almost every game guaranteed a national audience.
- Re: ESPN. 2 games on ABC (likely Saturday Night Football games), 8 games on ESPN Thursday/Friday nights, the remaining 12 to be distributed on ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU (a lot of them will probably end up in the Saturday late night window 10:30. All games (except the ones on ESPNU) should also be available on ESPN3.com, meaning improved online distribution for the conference.
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Re: FOX. 8 games on FOX, 14 games on FX, all of them national telecasts. No more games on Fox Sports Net. This means no more games will be relegated to CSN California (game only viewable for Bay Area/Northern California audiences).
- Re: Pac-12 Network. Will broadcast the remaining games, probably the majority of them on their TV network (and anything they can't fit on their digital network). Will also host a number of the best possible conference matchups in order to increase the long-term viability of the network (similar to the Big Ten Network model). Not guaranteed a national audience, but
- Pac-12 championship games rotates between FOX (2012, 2014, ...) & ESPN (2013, 2015, ...) and will be telecast on a Friday Night.
Tomorrow I'll recap the Pac-12 basketball deal, which is just as beautiful, and we will continue to discuss other specific parts of the contract and how it'll affect our lives as Cal fans over the next month. It's a great day to be a Pac-12 fan.
What are your thoughts on the new football TV contract?