On the Mountain West’s media deal, the Pac-12 comps, those left behind, the looming auditions and the lessons of realignment
Seconds after the Mountain West revealed its long-awaited media rights deal Tuesday morning — actually, it was more like nanoseconds — comparisons to the Pac-12’s media agreement commenced.
Are the linear components similar? How many games on CBS and The CW? What about the dollars involved? Why in the world didn’t the rival leagues simply merge?
It was quite the cacophony across two time zones and social media. Some of the noise carried the extra benefit of being based in reality.
We’ll dive into the relevant similarities and differences momentarily. But first, let’s draw an alternative comparison — one that exists at 40,000 feet but traces its roots to the front lines of realignment.
Let’s compare the Pac-12 in the summer of 2022 to the Mountain West in the fall of 2024.
Because that, folks, is where the lessons lie.
Whether the Pac-12 has a higher percentage of football games on linear TV or is collecting a few million more per school is secondary to the continued existence of two major college football conferences in the western third of the country for at least the next four or five years.
That’s a victory for fans across a footprint of 12 states and 14 Football Bowl Subdivision schools.
On the Mountain West side, survival was made possible because commissioner Gloria Nevarez learned from the mistakes of her former employer.
The Pac-12 made a series of strategic gaffes following the announced departures of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten in June 2022, but two are relevant here:
— Then-commissioner George Kliavkoff and the university presidents repeatedly declined to expand when both San Diego State and SMU were available (on the cheap) to add bulk, media markets, stability and success.
(The Aztecs reached the Final Four in 2023 out of the Mountain West while the Mustangs made the College Football Playoff in 2024 as a member of the ACC.)
— What’s more, Kliavkoff picked his college pal to serve as the Pac-12’s chief media advisor: Doug Perlman, who operates a boutique shop in Connecticut called Sports Media Advisors.
At the time, Nevarez was long gone from her role as Pac-12 lieutenant (under Larry Scott) and transitioning from her post as commissioner of the West Coast Conference over to the top spot at Mountain West HQ. But when Nevarez found herself in a similar predicament in the fall of 2024, after the Pac-12 climbed out of the gutter and raided the Mountain West for five of its top football schools, she did not repeat the mistakes.
After recovering from the blindside blow, Nevarez 1) retained Endeavor, a power player in the sports media business with the negotiating clout and relationships that a boutique advisory firm simply does not possess; and 2) wasted little time adding UTEP and Northern Illinois to the Mountain West football lineup (starting in July 2026).
The expansion moves weren’t based on the potential for El Paso and DeKalb to add millions to the conference’s media rights valuation. They were based on heft. Because in realignment, where emotions are high and every president has a wandering eye, heft matters.
Heft equates to stability.
The combination of a mega-firm running point on negotiations and new members adding heft gave the Mountain West a fighting chance to survive the Pac-12 raid in a manner the old Pac-12, crippled by leadership failure, could not survive the Big Ten’s right cross.
Not quite 18 months later, the Mountain West revealed a media agreement with Fox, CBS and The CW that not only saved the conference but offered more linear TV exposure than the remaining schools probably had a right to expect.
In the end, both conferences won.
The Pac-12 survived the departure of eight schools; the Mountain West weathered the loss of five.
Both have linear TV exposure for football and men’s basketball.
Both will have their conference championship games on broadcast networks.
A realignment wave that began in July 2021, when Texas and Oklahoma bolted the Big 12 for the SEC, has finally concluded. (The next one could start before the decade ends.)
To be clear, the cash component in the Mountain West and Pac-12 deals isn’t immaterial — certainly not in the era of revenue sharing and NIL. But in our view, it’s secondary to the exposure available on wide-reach networks.
The rebuilt conferences are effectively start-ups that lost their biggest brands and must carve new paths during the most tumultuous time in the industry’s history.
Nobody knows what’s coming in the early 2030s, with the expiration of the media rights contracts (Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, College Football Playoff and NCAA Tournament) that are holding the whole shebang together.
It could be an unprecedented round of realignment in which the Big Ten and SEC expand again, the ACC implodes, the Big 12 becomes a 24-school life raft and the Group of Six splits into a tiered structure.
Or it could be a super league of 32 or 48 teams with promotion and relegation and a pool of excluded schools reforming into a second division.
Nobody knows what’s coming, but everyone agrees something’s coming. And for all but 20 or 25 schools in the power conferences, the next five years will be an audition.
To have any chance of playing with the cool kids, you must be seen.
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark hasn’t cut sub-licensing deals with TNT and TBS because he grew up an Atlanta Braves fan. He did it to “amplify” (his word) the schools — to increase their visibility and raise their value for the next era.
The scale might be different for the Pac-12 and Mountain West, but the goal is the same: exposure.
On that front, both conferences should be pleased.
Other thoughts on the Mountain West’s deal:
— The reverse merger option remains a point of public discussion: Washington State and Oregon State should have simply joined the Mountain West to create a 14-school conference.
Instead of splitting the media rights pie with two leagues, the consolidation would have enhanced leverage in negotiations for a new rights deal.
But was it ever realistic? In our view, Boise State and San Diego State, in particular, had grown weary of subsidizing the lower-value, sporadically-competitive schools in the Mountain West.
Bigger brands leaving the smaller brands behind is a tale as old as realignment itself.
(Can you blame the Aztecs, who built a 35,000-seat stadium at the same time San Jose State eliminated the entire east side of its stadium to create a 100-yard berm visible on TV broadcasts.)
When the Pac-12 presented an opportunity to disassociate from the Mountain West’s lower tier, especially with schedule strength occupying a central role in the CFP selection process, Boise State, SDSU, Fresno State, Colorado State and Utah State simply could not afford to pass.
The competition is better, the exposure is wider and the brand is stronger for the Broncos and Aztecs in the rebuilt Pac-12 than it would have been had they stayed put.
That’s true for men’s basketball, as well, particularly given Gonzaga’s presence. The Zags would not have joined the Mountain West.
— Both restructured conferences have media agreements with The CW and CBS, while the Mountain West has Fox as its third partner and the Pac-12 has USA Network.
But the deals aren’t identical. They aren’t even fraternal twins. They’re related, sure, but key differences exist based on the inventory and distribution.
Perhaps the most important contrast: Every regular-season football game controlled by the Pac-12 (i.e., home games) will air on linear networks while roughly 70 percent of Mountain West games will have the same exposure.
In raw numbers, that’s 48-of-48 games for the Pac-12 and 40 of 54 for the Mountain West. (There could be some variance based on non-conference schedules in a given season.)
On the men’s basketball side, about 75 percent of Pac-12 home games will air on linear networks, whereas just 35 percent of Mountain West inventory will receive the linear treatment. (We’re assuming each team plays half its non-conference games at home, but that might not be the case.)
— The only parallel within the financial component is that both conferences hoped for more.
We don’t have exact figures — the terms have not been disclosed, which speaks volumes — but presume Pac-12 schools will collect $6 million per year, on average. That estimate includes the operational costs of Pac-12 Enterprises, which will produce games for The CW and USA Network.
(Of note: Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould, who succeeded Kliavkoff, opted to hire Octagon, a global firm, as the conference’s media advisor in the 2024-25 negotiating cycle.)
The Mountain West went backwards in valuation from the deal that expires this summer and spins off an average of approximately $3.5 million per school.
We know this because 1) only the legacy members will collect $3.5 million in the new deal; and 2) the conference will use alternate funding (i.e., reserves) to ensure the math works across the board, according to a report in The Athletic.
Then again, the new Pac-12 should have better exposure and more media revenue than the new Mountain West.
It has the biggest brands in both sports, Gonzaga basketball and Boise State football, and it secured media rights agreements months before the Mountain West.
(The Pac-12 announced CBS would be its primary partner last June.)
— That said, the Hotline believes the deals are comparable on a relative basis.
By that, we mean the cash and linear exposure within the Mountain West agreement could exceed the intrinsic value of the membership by a greater amount than the Pac-12’s deal exceeds the value of its schools.
The former has zero tentpole programs. The latter has Gonzaga, Boise State and San Diego State.
Frankly, the former is fortunate to have any media deal given the state of affairs in the fall of 2024. But shrewd moves by a commissioner who heeded the lessons of realignment created a path to salvation.
And the entire region is better for it.
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