Pac 12 TV Update

I know I am not breaking any major news here, but wanted to bring all of our readers up to date in case you haven’t heard the good word.

Last week, I mentioned the Pac 12 TV contract should be finalized soon, so I thought I should at least follow-up on that since it was my piece.  By no means am I saying “see I predicted it” because honestly, I was just rehashing the news from others.  But anyways, read more about the new deal and a great article on Jeff Tuel after the jump!

So there you have it folks, the Pac 12 TV negotiations have been finalized.  The Pac 12 will announce the new deal tomorrow in Phoenix, but it appears the deal is worth $3B over 12 years, or $250M annually!  Split evenly amongst all  tweleve member schools, WSU will be receiving $21M each year.  That means our athletic department’s revenue increases 56% overnight! 

The deal is a partnership between ESPN and FOX, which also tells me ABC will be somewhat involved in this.  In addition, the conference will be creating their own network, which I imagine will carry the lower tier games on a weekly basis, as we are seeing with the Big 10 Network.

Kudos to Larry Scott for getting this thing done.  I know in his past work he negotiated TV deals for the Women’s Tennis Association, so I knew all along he would be a great champion for The Conference of Champions! The current TV contract, signed by former commisioner Tom Hansen and UW alum, expires after the 2011 season.  That deal is was worth roughly $64M annually, and the more your school appeared on TV, the more you were paid.

This deal totally reminds me of that scene in Rounders, with Larry Scott playing Matt Damon and the media companies playing Teddy KGB.

I would imagine phrases like “This SOB all night, he check, check, check.  He trap me”  and “Pay zhat man, his money” were common phrases in the FOX, Comcast, and ESPN offices the last month in reference to Mr. Scott!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RiuE1rWnso&w=425&h=350]

Earlier today, Ted Miller had a great piece over on the Pac 12 Blog at ESPN about Jeff Tuel.  It talks about how the team is using the big losses the past couple of seasons as big time motivation.  What stood out the most to me was this from Tuel,

“Any true competitor does not like to lose. It pisses you off. And when you don’t get the respect you feel like you deserve, it will start a fire underneath you as well. It’s definitely a humbling feeling a times, but you put somethings in the back of your mind, for sure.”

Tuel sounds like a man on a mission, and we should all be excited to watch him and the rest of our young Cougs execute their plan come September!

All for today, have a great night Cougar fans!