The rebuilt Pac-12 has completed the latest part of — and final football portion of — its new media rights deal, partnering with USA Sports (USA Network) on a five-year agreement beginning next fall.
Beginning next year, USA Sports will broadcast 22 regular-season Pac-12 football games each season, 50 regular-season men’s basketball games and five to 10 regular-season women’s basketball games. It will also air the men’s basketball tournament up until the championship game, which will be on CBS. The Pac-12 will produce all games on USA Sports.
USA Network is part of the new Versant media company, which is being spun off from Comcast/NBC into a separate company. It includes CNBC, Golf Channel, SyFy and MSNBC (soon MSNOW). Versant on Tuesday announced “USA Sports” as the sports division of its new company. USA Network also has Atlantic 10 college basketball, Premier League soccer, NASCAR Cup Series playoff races and WWE Friday Night SmackDown.
“This partnership with the Pac-12 adds high-quality college football to our portfolio at USA Sports, which will largely be comprised of Saturday doubleheaders,” USA Sports president Matt Hong told The Athletic. “Our partnership with the Pac-12 strengthens our USA Sports portfolio and further establishes USA Network as a destination for top-tier sports and entertainment.”
The new Pac-12 will be made up of Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State in all sports, plus non-football Gonzaga in all other sports. Affiliate members will include Dallas Baptist (baseball), Northern Illinois (wrestling) and Southern Utah (women’s gymnastics).
With the addition of USA Sports, all Pac-12 football games will be on linear TV networks. Football will have 22 games on USA Sports, 13 on The CW, a maximum of 10 on CBS Sports Network and a minimum of three regular-season games on CBS (and Paramount Plus streaming), along with the Pac-12 championship game on CBS.
Most of the men’s basketball media rights are settled. That includes 50 games and most of the conference tournament on USA Sports, 35 on The CW, a maximum of 17 on CBS Sports Network and a minimum of three on CBS/Paramount Plus, along with the conference tournament championship game.
Women’s basketball rights are not complete, but currently will have 15 regular-season games on The CW (plus the conference tournament final and semifinals) and five to 10 games on USA Sports. Plans for most of the Olympic sports rights are still being finalized.
“We are thrilled to launch this partnership with the USA Sports team and leverage our shared vision to build something unique and special,” Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould said in a statement.
— The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch contributed to this report.
