Pac-12 strikes one-year deal with Fox and the CW

The Pac-12 college sports conference has agreed a one-year national television deal with Fox and The CW for most home games involving its two remaining teams – Oregon State and Washington State.

The CW will broadcast 11 of the 13 fixtures, with games produced by the Pac-12’s in-house production facility. The remaining two matchups will air either on Fox’s main network or on the FS1 cable channel.

Away games involving Oregon State and Washington State against Mountain West Conference (MWC) teams will be shown by Fox and CBS as part of the conference’s six-year media rights deals that began in 2020.

Financial terms for the deal have not been disclosed. However, the Pac-12 says the confirmed schedule will give certainty to fans, while the wide reach of both networks will be a boon to both schools following the mass exodus of teams to other conferences last year.

“We are thrilled to announce these national partnerships with The CW and Fox,” said Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould. “Oregon State and Washington State football student-athletes deserve this elite stage as they continue competing for the College Football Playoff, and Beaver and Cougar fans have a great opportunity to enjoy their teams’ successes.”

Gould replaced George Kliavkoff, whose failure to secure a satisfactory broadcast deal led to the departure of all but two colleges from the Pac-12, in February. The conference’s previous contract with ESPN and Fox was worth US$3 billion over 12 years, however it expired at the end of the 2023 season.

The arrangement sees Fox add two more games to a college football slate that already includes the Big Ten and Big 12. As for The CW, it bolsters a modest but growing portfolio of sports rights that includes college football from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

“Adding the Pac-12 Conference to The CW’s growing roster of live sports gives the network coast-to-coast coverage in key markets and solidifies our position as a national player in college sports,” said Dennis Miller, president of The CW Network.

“The CW will truly be a destination for all sports fans this fall with impressive weekend lineups consisting of Pac-12 football, ACC football, LIV Golf and Nascar Xfinity Series playoff races.”

SportsPro say
After two long years of prolonged negotiations, legal wrangles and defections, the Pac-12 – or at least what’s left of it – has some certainty.

Back in 2022, the conference was optimistic about doubling the value of its television deal. Losing two key schools in the Los Angeles media market in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC) made this original ambition impossible, while rival conferences have leapfrogged the Pac-12 to secure deals that limit the ability of major networks to allocate significant revenue and airtime.

With the likes of ESPN and Fox out of the picture, the Pac-12 had to be creative – hence the proposal from Apple. However, schools believed eschewing broadcast television entirely would lead to an unacceptable loss in exposure that would damage the Pac-12’s status as one of the biggest conferences in college football.

The priority with this deal was reach over revenue and Gould has achieved that. The CW will not treat the Pac-12 as an afterthought, giving it prime timeslots given the absence of competing matchups, while Fox will provide a platform to amplify two of the biggest inter-conference fixtures.

It’s a short-term arrangement but at least Oregon State and Washington State have time to plot their next move. SportsPro Media