One day after officially announcing the USA Sports brand, Versant on Thursday announced a new rights deal with the reconstituted Pac-12.
USA Sports has reached a five-year media rights deal with the Pac-12 to carry football and men’s and women’s basketball games through the 2030-31 season, it was announced Thursday. The network’s slate will include 22 regular season football games, 50 regular season men’s basketball games, the early rounds of the men’s Pac-12 Tournament, and 5-10 regular season women’s games.
The Pac-12 joins a USA Sports lineup that is formidable for what is in some respects a new cable venture. Thanks to its previous affiliation with NBC Sports, USA Sports owns rights to NASCAR, the WNBA, PGA TOUR, USGA, R&A and Premier League. It has absorbed NBCUniversal’s NASCAR rights deal and struck its own independent agreements with the WNBA and USGA.
USA Sports has also reached one deal that is fully unrelated to its prior NBC affiliation, an agreement with the second-year League One Volleyball.
As for the Pac-12, USA Sports joins CBS Sports and Nexstar-owned CW in carrying games starting next season. USA will carry more football and men’s basketball games than any other partner. CBS, the “A” partner, will have a minimum of three football and men’s basketball games on its broadcast network, with more on CBS Sports Network. CW will carry 13 football games, 35 in men’s basketball and 15 in women’s, plus the semifinals and title game of the women’s tournament.
A number of those games will be produced by Pac-12 Enterprises, which will produce more than 45 football games and more than 100 basketball games.
After losing ten of its 12 schools following the 2023 season, the Pac-12 has spent the past two years as a two-team league consisting of Oregon State and Washington State, allowed to do so only because of an NCAA grace period that allows conferences to operate with fewer than the mandated eight teams for two years. But next year, it is returning to full strength with the additions of Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State.
The new Pac-12 will ultimately be more like the old Mountain West, but between Boise State and San Diego State, it will include a recent College Football Playoff team and NCAA men’s basketball runner-up.
