Pac-12 won’t announce new media deal this week as more bidders get involved: Source

A long-awaited Pac-12 media rights deal will not be announced at Friday Football Media Day, a conference source said. the athleteThis is due in part to recent developments in the negotiations.

“We’ve seen people come to the table who weren’t at the table six months ago,” said the person. “The patience shown by chiefs and consultants is paying off, because waiting will result in better deals than the league would have had three, six or nine months ago.”

The person said there is no set timeline for an announcement beyond the “near future.”

It has now been nearly a full year since Commissioner George Klyavkov announced on the 2022 Pac-12 Football Day that the league has begun discussions for a new media rights deal beginning with the 2024 football season, when the league’s existing deals with ESPN, Fox and the Pac-12 networks expire. He said at the time that the process was “likely to take months to complete”.

Over the past five months, several league and ad heads have made public statements pointing to an imminent timetable for a new deal, none of which came to fruition. The longer the talks drag on, the greater the speculation that schools like Colorado and Arizona, known to be expansion targets for the Big 12, might defect.

But Arizona President Robert Robbins and Colorado Chancellor Phil DiStefano have indicated that their school won’t make any decisions until they know the details of the next Pac-12 deal. The Big 12’s new deals with ESPN and Fox, starting in 2025, are said to be worth about $31.7 million per school annually.

“We wouldn’t even think about going anywhere, neither of us, until we see what kind of show we get, and it’s still a work in progress,” he said. DiStefano told USA Today in late April.

The Big 12 has been exploring expansion since commissioner Brett Yormark was hired last summer, with an eye on adding Colorado and possibly more Pac-12 members. the athlete I mentioned earlier that no Pac-12 school has been more receptive to Big 12 overtures than Colorado.

Yormark said last week on Big 12 Media days that his conference has an expansion plan that he hopes to implement “sooner rather than later” if the opportunity arises. UConn is also on Yormark’s radar, but it will need to build a consensus among Big 12 ADs and Chiefs about the Huskies as a valuable addition to the league if it goes in that direction. Yormark also said he’s “absolutely fine” with staying in the 12, which could end up being the case for the time being if Colorado sticks to the Pac-12.

Kliavkoff, who has not commented publicly on the negotiations since last December, is set to take questions from the media on Friday in Las Vegas, where the topic threatens to overshadow the appearances of stars on the field like USC’s Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, Washington quarterback Michael Bennix Jr. and Oregon’s quarterback Bo Nix.

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