Pac-12 commissioner says it’s ‘inappropriate’ to release media revenue figures

· Yahoo Sports

Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The new-look Pac-12 is preparing to kick off its first year as a full-fledged conference after holdovers of the former league, Oregon State and Washington State, operated as a twosome under the Pac-12 banner following the conference’s practical dissolution after the 2023-24 season.

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Beginning this upcoming season, the Pac-12 will feature Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga (basketball), Oregon State, San Diego State, Texas State, Utah State and Washington State. The league will also begin a new set of media rights deals with CBS, The CW, and USA Sports. CBS will broadcast a few of the league’s marquee games, with the vast majority of inventory landing on The CW and USA Network.

Considering the breakdown of its media distribution, it’s fair to say the Pac-12 has solidified itself as a mid-major conference. Still, the Pac-12 is likely in a position to pay its member schools more than their previous homes — mostly in the Mountain West and Sun Belt — could have afforded to pay.

We won’t know exactly how much that is until some of the public schools in the conference file their financials because, at least according to Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould, it is “inappropriate” to publicize media revenues earned from the conference’s new set of rights deals. Appearing on a recent episode of the Bald-Faced Truth Unfiltered show with independent college football reporter John Canzano, Gould explained her reasoning.

“I think there’s a long history in our business of a lot of folks — whether it’s the media, whether it’s industry people — kind of focusing in on media rights numbers. And I would say a couple of things,” Gould began. “Number one, media rights are one piece of the overall distribution. All money is green. All money can be spent. I personally think, number one, that it’s incredibly inappropriate to be releasing numbers of agreements that we have with media rights partners that are very complex and have rights fees included, have marketing commitments included. They’re not simple agreements. But I would also say, in addition to the confidentiality of the agreements we signed with our media rights partners, we prefer to focus on our entire business enterprise and the overall number that our members will get at the end of the first year, FY27. That is really the more important number than the media rights number specifically.”

A skeptic, of course, would disagree with this premise. Media rights revenue for major conferences tend to find ways to leak out after they’re signed, in no small part because conferences want to brag about the money their schools will be receiving, which can help efforts like recruiting. The value of the Big Ten’s broadcast deals, for instance, was reported the same day the deals were announced.

It would stand to reason, then, that the Pac-12’s media rights deals are valued lower than the conference would like to let on.

The full distribution, however, could paint a more favorable picture. As Gould alludes to, those figures include revenues generated from the conference’s “entire business enterprise,” which includes revenue generated from Pac-12 Enterprises, the conference’s production arm that houses assets retained from the old Pac-12 operation. It’s unclear exactly how the conference plans to monetize those leftover assets, but it could help supplement lackluster media deals.

Eventually, we will see a fuller picture of what the new-look Pac-12 schools are earning. For now, it’s safe to assume that the schools that joined did so because there was upside, though it may not be fully realized yet.

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