I have you beat by a mile. I have a Nigerian Prince I am working with who needs to move $25 million into the country and only needs my routing information and I will get 10%!
Last edited:
PAC Media ( 1 year deal )
- Thread starter WarthogRebel
- Start date
Back to the OP. The truth is that there is no reports of any of the specifics about the 2025 deal in terms of payouts. So nothing has really changed. The thing that HAS changed is that they are officially in business with ESPN again and technically CBS but that may be a technicality for the apple cup?
Their press release did show how good their numbers on the CW were, and they were quite good (averaged 431k for their games last year).
I dont know what they will get, but i think it could be a pretty good payout just with the CW numbers alone. Getting in bed with ESPN is only going to help that number
Their press release did show how good their numbers on the CW were, and they were quite good (averaged 431k for their games last year).
I dont know what they will get, but i think it could be a pretty good payout just with the CW numbers alone. Getting in bed with ESPN is only going to help that number
It’s only a one-year deal so it doesn’t affect the MWC defectors at all, except in that now the PAC 2 might try to sell that they are getting $10M or so and to tell your buddies (Texas State, UNLV, etc).
They have 2 games on ESPN and both are vs ESPN schools (Big 12 Houston and ACC Cal)... that's the only reason ESPN is involved and I'm betting that "ESPN" means ESPN+ network
1 million per game.
42 games. (Estimate) to be televised.
Call it 45 million ease of math.
Divided by 9.
Football prtion of media deal around 5 million per year. Seem fair?
Big East gets 6 or 8 million for their basketball.
PAC is not getting 6 million for that conference lineup.
Call it 4 million per school.
5 mil for football between 3 and 4 for basketball.
So around 9 million per school.
MWC will get around 3.5
Where is that 1 milion per game reported? All the news outlets say that the numbers were not disclosed.
If they are averaging 431l per game I would guess that is easily 2x more the MW game average. Now adding MW teams will drop that average some, but I do think the CW has more visibility than CBS sports network and seemingly FS1 since their general numbers seem to be better. So it some ways, they have a better partner in the CW since they are getting more viewers. They are also hungry to get into the college football business and probably willing to "over pay" to do so.
Not true. The media deal is only for home games. The PAC have been negotiating with CBS and ESPN for a while now. The fact we played UTEP 2 years ago on ESPN+ didn't mean that we had a deal with ESPN. CBS and ESPN is getting 2 games a piece.
Last edited:
Things have changed before their deal last year. They performed better than probably everyone expected. Which is why some off those predicted estimates being "way off" from those experts may have not been as off as people thought.
Also worth noting that UNLV at Oregon State was a top 3 watched game for them on the CW last year. There seems to be more and more smoke to the UNLV to PAC fire, I just don't know how they get out of the GOR.
That being said you prediction is probably close. I can see a base media deal between 9-11 mill, Add on around 2 mil per school for an 8 team conference for CFP sharing, and that is 11-13 mil per team.
As for Gonzaga? If the BIg East gets 7.1 per school on basketball only, I think Gonzaga probably can pull their weight without football. At least not drop the mean too much. They are an ESPN darling, and probably the biggest reason that ESPN is trying to do business with PAC now. And now they are playing a much more intrigue that the vast majority of the WCC games.
I know you have your tail up to prove that the PAC is like the SEC and we missed out. Meanwhile here are the facts (as far as I can tell):
ESPN will show Cal at Oregon State on Aug. 30 (7:30 p.m. PT) and Houston at Oregon State on Sept. 26 (7:30 p.m. PT), Both are amazingly against P conference programs. Imagine that.
So 2 whole games on ESPN as part of their deal. Wowzers. Any other MWC/nPAC teams on ESPN will be due to the teams' they are playing ESPN deal. And crowing about the CW being some sort of great shakes....man, that's cringe.
What smoke? Random Twitter guys with Podcasts?
Maybe there is, I don't know.
UNLV doesn't have a President right now so who would have the authority to even make that call.
There's the same amount of 'smoke' surrounding Texas State.
Honestly CW isn't a horrible option. Easy to access / find the games.
I have a feeling MWC games are going to be relegated to ESPN 8 and FS3.
If UNLV performs well again this year, they should continue to get solid time slots. The rest of the MWC, not so much.
To your first point, your right, bigger networks bought the rights to games featuring teams in their conference.
431K per game average. I would imagine that is 2-3x's more than MW games. They got over 700K with the PAC 2 played each other.
Eyeballs are eyeballs.
But you think everyone out of the P4 are the same. 750K payout per year is not different than 10 mill+. Truthis that there is a hierarchy amongst the G6, and there was a reason that the PAC decided to not merge and face potentially high fees to rebuild, it is because of that bottom line.
Last edited:
I dunno. I get CW, ESPN 1/2/3 (pay for +), FS1/2, CBSS all the same with my cable provider. I honestly don't get the whole thing. If you want to watch a game, you can easily find it whatever the network or online service may be. If you have a good product, people will go find a way to watch. UNLV should know this better than any other school. Imagine playing games at midnight east coast time on a cable sports only channel that had only a fraction distribution.
CBS gets 1 of the OSU vs WSU games and the Apple Cup which is vs a Big 10 partner in Washington... that's not exactly a blockbusterdeal.. 3 of those 4 games on "major media partners" are due to them playing those media partners P4 teams. You're not going to those partners for road games at JMU, Tulsa, etc...
Fair enough.
West Coast teams have always had the issue with losing East Coast eyeballs with late starts.
If Texas State is the 8th member then I expect the PAC media deal numbers to be closer to AAC numbers than the 15 to 18 million they floated early on.
Per the metrics they used as stated in the article (which is not going to be all encompassing), which is home game viewership only and no bowl games; lets take a look lowly New Mexico.
Their season, went V Montana State 506k, Arizona 953k, FSU 55k, and WSU 244k. that equals 439.5k per game.
Lets look at Fresno State. NMSU 64k, WSU 246k, SJSU 36k, UCLA 1.1m. That gives us 361k as an average.
You could argue that the above teams are cherry picked, and you would be correct. But they had the most number of publicly available data that I could find, except Boise. They did 818k without the MWC championship and 1.1m with.
Lets talk about the larger problem that is looming for OSU/WSU. Lets start with that 431k, lets take a look at how they did in 2023. Mind you, Washington state went 5-7 and OSU went 8-5.
WSU: V Wisconsin 2.28m, Oregon State 1.48m, Colorado 727k, to give us an average viewership of 1.495m
OSU: V SDSU 418k, Utah 1.28m, UCLA 1.43m, Washington 4.73m, to give us an average of 1.964m
Rounding that out, it gives us an average of 1.729m viewers per both schools. That is a 456% decrease in average viewership if we are comparing 2023 to 2024. That is a gigantic problem.
This is correct. The home team negotiates deals with media partners. Cal and Houston are on ESPN because ESPN controls the national late night slot (7-7:30pm). The game against Houston was moved to Friday night instead of Saturday.
ESPN and CBS pay more than CW. CW figures aren't known for year 2.
CBS is also broadcasting one Oregon State vs Washington State game.
You make a good point, but you are missing something.
2024 Pac-12 Football Viewership Highlights
- Most-watched football game on The CW was the lone matchup between Washington State and Oregon State at Corvallis (695k).
- Top three most-watched football games on The CW (also, Colorado State at Oregon State - 568k and San Jose State at Washington State - 542k).
- Five of the top six most-watched football games on The CW (also, UNLV at Oregon State - 507k and Purdue at Oregon State - 452k).
- 11 games on The CW averaged 431k viewers (460k in nine games vs. FBS opponents).
- Two home games on FOX averaged 1.99m viewers (Oregon at Oregon State and Texas Tech at Washington State).
- Total viewership across all 13 home games on FOX and The CW averaged 671k.
- Washington State’s DIRECTV Holiday Bowl vs. Syracuse on FOX saw 2.93m viewers.
- Week 14 matchup of Oregon State at Boise State on FOX saw 1.68m viewers.
This didn't include Texas Tech as that was on Fox.
WAZZU:
Portland state
SJSU
Hawaii
Wyoming
Utah State
Oregon State:
Idaho State
Purdue
CSU
UNLV
SJSU
WAZZU
And as you see above the Purdue game didn't set the curve as it was the 5th most watched game.
The truth is the CW + PAC was a very successful combination with not many marquee games to juice the numbers. It makes it easier to beleive that their deal could be 2-3x more than MW games. It is hard to know for sure as CBS does not publish their ratings numbers. But I do believe that CBS sports network is a lost channel and isn't a regular option in a lot of packages which hurts.
Last edited:
- Most-watched football game on The CW was the lone matchup between Washington State and Oregon State at Corvallis (695k).
- Two home games on FOX averaged 1.99m viewers (Oregon at Oregon State and Texas Tech at Washington State).
- Washington State’s DIRECTV Holiday Bowl vs. Syracuse on FOX saw 2.93m viewers.
- Week 14 matchup of Oregon State at Boise State on FOX saw 1.68m viewers.
Factoring in their bowl games, and games on other networks, we get an average of 903k for Oregon State, and 840k for WSU. That's an average of 872k for both schools. I'll add in OSU's bowl game to my above comparison for 2023 so we are using like variables.
WSU: V Wisconsin 2.28m, Oregon State 1.48m, Colorado 727k, to give us an average viewership of 1.495m
OSU: V SDSU 418k, Utah 1.28m, UCLA 1.43m, Washington 4.73m, Notre Dame 3.26 (bowl) to give us an average of 2.224m
Rounding that out, it gives us an average of 1.859m viewers per both schools. That is a 255% decrease in average viewership if we are comparing 2023 to 2024. That is a still gigantic problem.
Lastly, here is the all of the CW data I could scrape easily.
| Other | Georgia Tech North Carolina 541k | Wake Forest, NC state 446k | Northern Illinois, NC State 427k | TCU, SMU 322k | Mississippi, Wake Forest 419k | Marshall, Virginia Tech 407k |
| WSU | Portland St, 223k | SJSU, 542k | Hawaii, 258k | USU, 371k | Wyoming, 399k | (358k average) |
| OSU | Idaho State, 381k | Purdue, 452k | CSU, 568k | UNLV, 507k | WSU, 695k | (520k average) |
That 520k+358k averaged out is how you get to the 439k. Which is only 12k higher than the other games averaged out. Its fairly close.
Last edited:
We are talking about CW based deals here. What do you think the average viewership for MW games on CBS sports network? I don't think it will be any better than 80-120k. It isn't published, but based off of how MW have done on other networks and adjusting it down to availability, I think I am close. Those are high end of ESPNU games which rarely break 100k. That is probably a fair comp in terms of availability and quality of opponent.
You also missed that the other 2 home games not on the CW averaged about 2 million viewers. Not the biggest drop.
Using your own numbers. In 2023 each PAC school cleared over 33 mil in media payouts. OK what is 255% less than that? About 10 mil per year.
No sh!t that the new PAC won't be worth what they were in the old PAC, but they seem to do much, much better than most of the MW. I think we would be doing backflips if UNLV could average 430K plus for a very mundane home schedule, don't you?
But that kind of performance on the CW, a channel I would gather most CFB fans had no idea played games, is pretty good and much better than I would guess anyone here would have expected.
Which brings us back to main discussion, how much is the PAC worth the CW? I think pretty high. They are having good returns, probably better than expected, they are trying to get into the CFB business, and they are getting easily 2-4 more viewers than the average MW game, and that is including the top markets that will be moving the PAC.
So expecting their base contract to be 2-3x more valuable than the MW's seems to be very likely to me
Last edited:
Each and every school in the MW and Pac have their own issues that have limited their ability to play at a higher level.
Boise is stuck behind too small of a dma.
Sdsu was held back because prior Pac members cared about academics
FSU has a loyal market that doesn’t watch the game on tv, because they’d rather be there.
CSU only started investing in the last decade.
Utah State has the same issues as OSU and WSU minus heavy debt.
Unr, Wyoming, and New Mexico don’t have the basis to compete in the NiL world.
Air Force has the same issues as other service academies.
Sjsu= apathy from their own market and lack of penetration.
UNLV: we squandered the success we had in the early 90’s in basketball by failing to meaningfully invest into football. We bet that basketball would be king, and we missed.
I am in a unique position that I HAVE seen those cbssn numbers. I can tell you that the gap isn’t that drastic across any of the schools in the MW. That includes UNLV.
Without breaking my NDA; I can tell you CBSSN numbers typically are more than most of the ESPU games, while being less than ESPN2. The numbers are higher than trutv options by a wide margin.
I’ve said in the beginning, (see my original post on the Hawaii thread) that I believe the Pac will be worth more. I just don’t believe the difference will be as drastic as 2x to 3x as you do. Would UNLV be better in the pac? Generally, I believe yes. But it depends on how legal battles go. Nothing is guaranteed, include the source of funding promised to UNLV.
You don’t take a bunch of schools worth 4-6m and suddenly pop out 10-18m. Even with inflation, that’s ridiculous.
I will be blunt. I don’t care about the Pac, OR the MW. What I care about the most is where UNLV will be in a decade. Its p4 or bust. Harper didn’t bring in Mullen, enhanced staff cash, made ties into more NiL, and made the changes in basketball to simply go to the Pac. We could have gotten there without those expenditures, risks, and liabilities when they invited us back in September.
Last edited:
Where are all these magical games going to come from on the CW? They only have a couple of games a week at most, so where do you think the rest of the PAC will play? The CW is most likely going to value the entire PAC at roughly the same value they have for the two PAC team in full, but instead of being divided by 2 teams, now the number will be divided by eight teams. In regard to your comment regarding a 255% less and you pull out $10 million per year, Oregon State and Washington State had zero value to the major conferences when they still could recruit and bring in good coaching staff, they have already dropped a mile, and you do not think they will take another large drop this next season? Except for the couple of games the PAC will have on the CW per week, it is most likely they will be looking at similar networks as the MWC uses, so I will wait with anticipation to see what there new media contract will be, and I will be shocked if it is anywhere near 3X that of the MWC, and will be shocked if they approach $10 million.
The pac may try to spin it but a lot is going to be last minute.
You can’t tell me that the incoming members are excited that the tv contracts aren’t completed yet. “Let’s do a one-year deal then we can sign something long-term next year.”
Only problem is that next year the pac is up against it, will have to overpay for an eighth team, and can get lowballed and have to say ‘thank you’ since time will be of the essence.
Obviously, this didn’t go as planned for them.
You can’t tell me that the incoming members are excited that the tv contracts aren’t completed yet. “Let’s do a one-year deal then we can sign something long-term next year.”
Only problem is that next year the pac is up against it, will have to overpay for an eighth team, and can get lowballed and have to say ‘thank you’ since time will be of the essence.
Obviously, this didn’t go as planned for them.
Cracks me up to see Gould being praised by some of those folks. Especially Oregon State fans. They're a really special bunch...
Tell me about it. Here we are almost in Mid-May and no 2026 media news, an unknown $ deal for 2025, and no 8th member. No idea where we are on the lawsuit mediation. The MW should have and still should take their chances in court IMHO.
The CW will probably be the equivalent to what CBS sports which is about 3-4 games per week. They would have to expand some, but they have already been doing 2-3 games a week between the PAC and the ACC and the PAC games have performed better. I would imagine if they are going to be a primary partner with the PAC, they would get preference and potentially stop playing the leftover ACC games.
The other games will go to the ESPN and Fox I would imagine. Probably the marquee games played late on the west coast.
The rest will be on the PAC 12 network or some sort of streaming platform, they probably utilize the MW model where the school basically produces those games themselves under the conference network banner.
So @RebelinWA, did you expect 431k average for the CW? So you are saying that CBS sportsnetwork (not counting any game that gets on CBS proper) is somewhere between 50-100k views and 400-700K? That is a pretty big range.
I know you can't disclose things, but I have a hard time believing that the average MW on CBS sports network is anything over 150K, and I think that is being very generous
There are any factors that contribute to ratings. A big part is the teams that are on it, but the channel also plays a huge role, accessibility is huge. The CW had a very promising start, with the PAC teams outperforming their other offerings on average.
I have no doubt that many MW teams have similar numbers, because the MW is on CBS sports Network, which just isn't going to pull in big ratings due to availability.
There is a reason that CBS doesn't put any of March Madness on CBS Sports network. Their college sports specific network, it is because it has a poor subscriber base. They would rather put it on TruTV of all channels.
I think the CW has a better reach than CBS sports network, as it is often bundled with an extra "sports Pack" with TV providers, while the CW is a standard channel for most providers.
So I think that the same school will generate more views on the CW than CBS sports network. More views equals higher media deals.
I think there is a big reason why the PAC didn't want to merge with the MW, because they knew they could make more without the merger. So much more that poaching from the MW with all the fees could be worth it in the long run.
The other games will go to the ESPN and Fox I would imagine. Probably the marquee games played late on the west coast.
The rest will be on the PAC 12 network or some sort of streaming platform, they probably utilize the MW model where the school basically produces those games themselves under the conference network banner.
So @RebelinWA, did you expect 431k average for the CW? So you are saying that CBS sportsnetwork (not counting any game that gets on CBS proper) is somewhere between 50-100k views and 400-700K? That is a pretty big range.
I know you can't disclose things, but I have a hard time believing that the average MW on CBS sports network is anything over 150K, and I think that is being very generous
There are any factors that contribute to ratings. A big part is the teams that are on it, but the channel also plays a huge role, accessibility is huge. The CW had a very promising start, with the PAC teams outperforming their other offerings on average.
I have no doubt that many MW teams have similar numbers, because the MW is on CBS sports Network, which just isn't going to pull in big ratings due to availability.
There is a reason that CBS doesn't put any of March Madness on CBS Sports network. Their college sports specific network, it is because it has a poor subscriber base. They would rather put it on TruTV of all channels.
I think the CW has a better reach than CBS sports network, as it is often bundled with an extra "sports Pack" with TV providers, while the CW is a standard channel for most providers.
So I think that the same school will generate more views on the CW than CBS sports network. More views equals higher media deals.
I think there is a big reason why the PAC didn't want to merge with the MW, because they knew they could make more without the merger. So much more that poaching from the MW with all the fees could be worth it in the long run.
They don't have an 8th member, so they aren't going to announce their new deal yet. It makes sense. I'm sure they have their partners worked out and have a valuation on their 7 teams right now. I think it will be CW, ESPN, and maybe CBS. Though I wouldn't be surprised if FOX is there too, simply since FOX have been playing home games for them last year and this year.
I think they are waiting to get clarification with these lawsuits and will take another run at UNLV, which is probably their number 1 target right now. No idea if that is even possible, as I am skeptical. But I think they are least trying.
I agree that the PAC bundled the rebuild. Should have had 8 teams before they went public. Also UNLV should have been part of the initial 4 instead of Fresno State. It is what it is.
I do think CW will be a partner, but they will get the leftover games like the now defunct PAC-12 Network did. But with more inventory you can sell more media ads. If CBS and ESPN are partners they will get the pick of the best games/matchups each Friday/Saturday. Same if it was FOX or TNT.
This was the agreement under the old PAC-12. ESPN and FOX rotated weekends on who got first pick of PAC games and any games that didn't get picked up by ESPN or FOX were broadcast on the PAC-12 Network.
Last edited:
Here are some numbers for you. Big 10's base media value per team is 58.8 million per team. 1 billion per year/17 teams.
The big 10 averages 4.25 million viewers per game on the major networks. They average 760k for Big 10 network games.
The Pac 2 last year average 431k for their CW games ( BTN equivalent) they averaged 1.99 mil when on Fox.
So they are somewhere between 44-56% the viewership of the Big 10 per game.
With those comps the PAC 2 are worth somewhere between 25.5 mil-32.8 mil dollars by themselves (per team).
A bit of an oversimplification, I know there are other factors, but inflation is crazy.
The big 10 averages 4.25 million viewers per game on the major networks. They average 760k for Big 10 network games.
The Pac 2 last year average 431k for their CW games ( BTN equivalent) they averaged 1.99 mil when on Fox.
So they are somewhere between 44-56% the viewership of the Big 10 per game.
With those comps the PAC 2 are worth somewhere between 25.5 mil-32.8 mil dollars by themselves (per team).
A bit of an oversimplification, I know there are other factors, but inflation is crazy.
I snorted Coors Light out of my nose when I read this. Thanks for the chuckle.
Based on that fuzzy math: UNLV has played games on fox over the last 2 years with an average viewership of 2.135 million when on fox
UNLV averaged 2.01 million over last 2 years on ESPN and 2.97 million when on CBS, so I guess UNLV is worth roughly 35-40 million per year?
3-4 sounds right for 8 teams. Depending on the early season, that may rarely rise to 5 on odd weeks early in the season where they might have more home games than not.
They have to rebuild the Pac12 network. Doable.
The range is the range. If we didn’t believe a match up was worth the expenditure, it would get punted.
We predicted a significant decline in viewership when we built a case study/ did a feasibility study.
We did it for our own networks, and not for anyone else, though Paramount does own a majority, minority share of the CW.
We only explored them as far as the Mountain West, and our tiers across CBS. They weren’t projected to be at the top of the mountain west in terms of viewership.
Admittedly, when we ran our discovery on it, the consensus on the zoom call was that there were three likely things to happen to the Pac.
1. They would take a no money deal with the ACC.
2. They would take a share with the AAC.
3. They would end up with the MW.
We missed all three. No one thought they would try to rebuild once everyone else left.
This is where the ACC might hurt them. The CW only has so many time slots available in a day. Where do you draw the line of who makes it to your network, and who gets relegated to another streaming option? Do you do week day games?
March Madness is a big revenue driver for CBS. We were spending about a billion dollars a year on March Madness. Regular season basketball usually doesn’t draw nearly as high of viewership when compared to a football game.
You can definitely get the CW with an antenna vs having to pay for a sports package or streaming option.
To an extent. But there is a ceiling. It’ll be unavoidable for the CW to be in a position where it runs out of Saturday time slots.
Theres a limit there too. I generally agree that its worth a move for the long run if we can’t make a p4. My projections support this theory that in late 2029 to mid 2030 is the timing where a move would be worth it. That happens to be around the time when we should be announcing our move up, if we are going to be moving up.
With that said, even at $8m, the amount of extra money from the conference won’t be enough for us to be competitive with power conferences. We only get there from higher NiL. Higher NiL comes from support gained through winning. I don’t believe conference matters as much in that context.
