Inside The Huskies

Pac-12 Says Media-Rights Broadcast Deal Is Coming Soon

San Diego State and SMU are favorites to fill out conference lineup.
Dan Raley|
Pac-12 Says Media-Rights Broadcast Deal Is Coming Soon
Pac-12 Says Media-Rights Broadcast Deal Is Coming Soon

On Monday, the Pac-12 Conference made an announcement, but only to suggest that another more pressing announcement was coming.

It didn't say when other than "very soon."

The league, likely sensing the growing impatience of the rest of the college sporting landscape, felt it necessary with a brief statement to assure everyone that a potential media-rights deal wasn't far off.

What that means is the Pac-12 will have to reveal a pair of new members — the odds-on favorites are San Diego State and SMU to replace USC and UCLA — and next introduce its new media partners and disclose how much money is involved.

Second-year Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff didn't try to hide the fact he was in Dallas over the past week, meeting with SMU officials and photographed with them at a Mustangs basketball game.

Once the 12-team conference lineup and corresponding media bounty is revealed, expect some sort of resolution involving the Pac-12 Network, with the league broadcast arm possibly swallowed up in some sort of broadcast consolidation.  

As for the rights deal, multiple partners is a given, with some sort of multi-media deal involving a TV entity and a streaming partner, maybe something as diverse as an Amazon Prime.

For now, attorneys likely are busy at work crafting final membership and broadcast arrangements agreeable to all parties involved. 

While the Pac-12 has been chastised for dragging its feet and potentially accepting a much smaller financial payout than other conferences, don't be surprised if Kliavkoff uses his broadcast background and surprises people with the dollars and overall deal he lines up.

At the Alamo Bowl, Kalen DeBoer, University of Washington football coach, was asked before facing Texas about the state of the Pac-12 and he seemed comfortable with the way things were headed.

"At a time where everything is just so fluid, with teams leaving and coaches coming in, we're just always trying to make our league stronger," DeBoer said.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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