The third and final piece of the new Pac-12’s media rights package became official early Thursday with USA Network joining previously announced partners CBS and The CW to broadcast football and basketball games beginning next summer.
As with the other partners, USA Network signed a five-year deal that runs through the 2030-31 season. However, its piece is the largest of the three with 22 football games, 50 men’s basketball games and five to 10 women’s basketball games.
Officially, the Pac-12’s media agreement is with USA Sports, a new brand launched by parent company Versant that will house the sports programming on USA Network.
The addition of USA Network means all Pac-12 home football games will air on linear television (broadcast or cable) — a clear signal that the conference and campus executives prioritized exposure for the teams.
But it means the rebuilt conference won’t be partnering with ESPN or Fox, the most influential networks in college sports.
Financial terms were not announced.
The deal completes a process that, for multiple iterations of the Pac-12, began back on June 30, 2022 — the day USC and UCLA announced their departures to the Big Ten.
The 10 remaining schools spent more than a year attempting to secure a satisfactory media deal before the conference broke apart, leaving Washington State and Oregon State alone.
In September 2024, the two holdovers secured the Pac-12’s future by adding Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State and (a few weeks later) Gonzaga — thereby sparking another round of media rights negotiations.
CBS became the primary partner in June, followed two months later by The CW and, finally, USA Network.
From beginning to end, the process took 1,232 days.
“The new Pac-12 is where tradition meets transformation — a unique opportunity in the rapidly evolving college sports landscape that strongly aligns with the go-forward vision of USA Sports,” Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould said in a statement issued by the conference.
“We are thrilled to launch this partnership with the USA Sports team and leverage our shared vision to build something unique and special.”
All football and basketball games shown on USA Network will be produced by Pac-12 Enterprises, the conference’s production unit.
With the completion of the media rights package, the Pac-12 announced that all kickoff times for home games will be revealed before the season — there will be no 12- or six-day in-season selections.
How many home games will the new Pac-12 play in a given season?
On that matter, the deals with CBS, The CW and USA Sports are revealing.
— CBS has 13 games annually, with a minimum of three set for CBS and a maximum of 10 on CBS Sports Network.
— The CW owns the rights to 13 games.
— USA Sports has 22.
That’s 48 home games in all.
How might the conference produce 48 home games per season?
Well, a round-robin schedule in which eight teams play seven conference games is 28 games (56 divided by two).
If half the teams play three non-conference home games per year (12 games) and half the teams play two non-conference home games per year (eight), that’s 20 non-conference home games.
That’s a total of 48 home games for the three broadcast partners.
But to be clear: That math is unofficial — the conference hasn’t finalized the scheduling piece.
With regard to men’s basketball, USA Sports has the rights to 50 games each season, with The CW airing 35 and CBS three.
USA Sports will broadcast each round of the men’s tournament up to the championship, which is on CBS.
*** Send suggestions, comments and tips (confidentiality guaranteed) to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com or call 408-920-5716
*** Follow me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline