After a long wait, the Mountain West has finally nailed down its next media rights deal, securing an agreement with CBS, Fox Sports and the CW to broadcast around 150 regular season and postseason events each year. The MW shares many of the same partners as the Pac-12, which finalized its own media rights deal with CBS, The CW, and USA Network back in November.
The two conferences will share both geographical and TV/digital space in the coming years. They’ll also be sharing a courtroom for much of that time as the two sides continue to fight over roughly $150 million in exit fees and other money owed by the Pac-12 and future members based on their impending departure from the Mountain West.
Since five of the future Pac-12 schools left the Mountain West for the new league, it’s worth comparing the two and seeing if the move, and potentially $150 million price tag, was ultimately worth it.
Pac-12’s Broadcast Slate
A maximum of 48 regular season Football games
- Minimum of 3 regular season games on CBS
- Maximum of 10 regular season games on CBS Sports Network
- 13 regular season games on The CW
- 22 regular season games on USA Network
- Conference championship game on CBS
A maximum of 105 regular season Men’s Basketball games
- Minimum of 3 regular season games on CBS
- Maximum of 17 regular season games on CBSSN
- 35 regular season games on The CW
- 50 regular season games on USA Network
- Conference tournament championship game on CBS
- Conference tournament games (excluding title game) on USA Network
Between 20-25 regular season Women’s Basketball games
- 15 regular season games on The CW
- 5-10 regular season games on USA Network
- Conference tournament semifinals and championship game on The CW
Mountain West’s Broadcast Slate
40 regular season Football games
- 12 games on Fox Sports (Fox, FS1, FS2)
- At least 1 game on CBS
- 14 games on CBSSN
- 13 games on The CW
- Conference championship game on Fox Sports
59 regular season Men’s Basketball games
- 20 games on Fox Sports
- At least 1 game on CBS
- 18 games on CBSSN
- Conference tournament quarterfinals and semifinals on CBSSN
- Conference tournament championship game on CBS
- 20 games on The CW
17 regular season Women’s Basketball games
- 2 games on CBSSN
- Conference tournament championship on CBSSN
- 15 games on The CW
According to the Pac-12, the entire slate of conference games and all home games played by member schools will be available through either “over-the-air broadcast networks” such as CBS or the CW, or they will be available via cable channels or streaming, such as CBS Sports Network and USA Network. All CBS broadcasts will also be streamed on Peacock.
For basketball, the Pac-12 estimate is that just above 70% of regular season home games will available in similar fashion to football games. We can verify that number to a degree with some math. If every team in the conference played eight home non-conference games, that’s 72 games the Pac-12 partners would have rights to. Coincidently, that’s also the exact number of conference games that would take place with nine teams doing a double round-robin slate. So that’s an estimated 144 games the Pac-12 media partners could broadcast, plus or minus a few depending on total number of non-conference home games (probably no more than 148 and now fewer than 140). If the maximum of 105 games according to the media rights deal were broadcast on the various platforms, that comes out to 73% of games.
Doing the same math for the Mountain West, it will have about 74% of its conference games and home non-conference games shown on one of these networks. That number is based on an estimated 54 potential games (36 conference games and an estimated 18 home non-conference games for MW teams). For basketball, there will be approximately 35% of games on these linear networks (170 potential games to broadcast, 90 conference games and 80 estimated home non-conference games).
In addition to all of these games, the Mountain West Network will continue to broadcast games not carried by one of these media partners and will carry non-football/basketball sports. In total, it will feature more than 1,000 regular season and postseason events. However, it will be placed behind a paywall after having been free up until now. This is likely due to one of the new partners in the media deal, Kiswe, a New Jersey-based streaming and video platform company that will power the MW’s streaming service.
As of now, the Pac-12 has not indicated how non-football/basketball sports will be made available to the public.
The biggest question about these two media deals is, unfortunately, the one that isn’t being answered yet: what is the per-school payout amount? The Pac-12 has been suspiciously quiet on the matter, with non-disclosure agreements being signed by pretty much all parties. There have been hints and reports of how much the media deal will be worth. At one point, reports (and hopes) were that the payout could be $15 million per school. More recent reports from John Canzano and Jon Wilner have placed that figure in the $7-10 million range, though the lower end of that spectrum may be more realistic.
In an interview with Cache Valley Daily, Utah State Director of Athletics Cam Walker that the dollar figures were “a little lean.”
“The few years in the (media deal) are a little lean,” Walker said. “Not worse than where we were, but a little leaner than maybe we anticipated.”
Assuming the payout is in the lower range, around $7-8 million, it should be around double, perhaps slightly more than double, what the Mountain West is expected to make. Chris Vannini of The Athletic reported the details of the Mountain West’s media deal and included reporting on the potential media payout. The Mountain West’s grant of rights agreement with its remaining and new members, includes a clause that the media payout would not decrease from the roughly $3.5 million per school “whether the money comes entirely from the TV deal or is drawn in part from league reserves” per Vannini.
