ESPN and Fox Sports have scored rights to the Pac-12 Conference, including football and men’s basketball, through the next decade.
The Pac-12 Conference has agreed to twelve-year media rights deals with ESPN and Fox Sports Media Group starting in the 2012-13 season. Under the deal, the various ESPN and FOX networks will televise a combined 44 college football games and 68 men’s college basketball games per year.
The 44 college football games will be split evenly between ESPN (22 games) and Fox Sports (22 games).
According to the Pac-12, broadcast networks FOX and ABC will televise a combined 10 football games per year. In a separate release, Fox Sports says the FOX broadcast network will air at least eight games. With that in mind, it stands to reason that the ABC slate will be limited to one or two games per year.
The remaining 34 games will air on some combination of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and FX. FX will air fourteen games, leaving 20 games for the ESPN cable networks. ESPN’s slate will include new 10:30 PM ET Saturday night games and a combined eight games on Thursday and Friday nights.
The Pac-12 Championship Game will alternate between FOX and ESPN, airing on a Friday night in primetime. This year’s game, which will air on FOX on Saturday, December 3, is not affected.
Of the 68 men’s basketball games, ESPN will air 46 and Fox Sports will air 22. The 46 on ESPN will air on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, with some games airing in new 11 PM ET timeslots. The 22 games on FOX will air on the various FSN networks.
Like the football championship, the Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament will also alternate between FOX and ESPN. In years when Fox Sports has the rights, FOX or FX will air one semifinal game, one quarterfinal game and the championship game. In years when ESPN has the rights, the ESPN family of networks will televise the same games.
The ESPN networks will also air five women’s basketball games, including the championship game of the Pac-12 tournament. ESPN will also carry Olympic events.
In addition, the Pac-12 will create a new Pac-12 Network, which will air games not carried by FOX or ESPN.
(Information from Pac-12 press release, Fox Sports press release, and ESPN press release, all via Fang’s Bites)
