Imperiled US collegiate football conference Pac-12 has finally announced its broadcast mix for its upcoming 2024 season, with The CW, the commercial network, and pay-TV sports giant Fox Sports, to air games nationally.
The beleaguered two-team competition will now see 11 of its 13 home games in 2024 aired on the CW, with the remaining two to be shown on Fox either via its main channel or on Fox Sports 1.
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Games will also be aired on Pac-12''s in-house digital cable and satellite platform, Pac-12 TV, with the conference's in-house media arm Pac-12 Enterprises producing all 11 of the CW's games.
The Pac-12 has been negotiating its next set of media rights deals since last July when it was authorized to begin discussions earlier than planned, but has only now finalized a tie-up, with broadcasters hesitant to invest money into covering a conference that has lost the vast majority of its attraction.
Through a partnership with the Mountain West conference, the 2024 Pac-12 season will see its two remaining teams, Oregon State and Washington State, play six home games each against an assortment of Mountain West teams (as well as sides from other conferences) to make up its season – as well as once against each other.
In securing a national TV agreement for its home games, Pac-12 ensures that it will not lose national broadcast coverage as it continues to tread water amid the fallout of 10 of its teams exiting the conference in 2023.
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By GlobalDataThe remaining two teams in the Pac-12 are now also looking to defect to other conferences, making the demise of the Pac-12 all but inevitable.
The defections have been driven by American football and the money that it generates. The Big 12, for example, has a $2 billion deal with Fox and international sports broadcaster ESPN in place through 2036.
Before the last round of defections, Pac-12 was reportedly mulling a potential media rights deal with tech giant Apple, but has now settled for the CW, not a traditional sports broadcaster, as well as a limited deal with Fox, which will only show Oregon State vs Oregon and Washington State vs Texas Tech, given that Oregon and Texas Tech are much higher profile football programs.
CW Network president Dennis Miller stated: “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.”
Other sports rights held by the CW include the ACC college football conference, breakaway golf tour LIV Golf, and stock car racing series Nascar’s Xfinity Series playoff races.
