Sooner or later this spring, the rebuilt Pac-12 is predicted to signal a media rights settlement to start in 2026 and span the rest of the last decade. The rebuilt Mountain West is more likely to do the identical, creating an enchanting twist to the realignment sport: Neighboring conferences, battered by departures and revitalized by growth, are concurrently looking for media offers to safe their futures.
What’s a sensible valuation for the brand new Pac-12 after raiding the Mountain West for Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State, then grabbing Gonzaga from the West Coast Convention? (All six are scheduled to hitch the convention in July ’26.)
Is the Pac-12 price considerably greater than its reconstituted neighbor, which added Northern Illinois in soccer and UTEP in all sports activities, plus UC Davis and Grand Canyon as members in every part besides soccer?
The Hotline tried to realize readability on every convention’s market worth by plunging into TV rankings knowledge and making use of trade methodology. We spoke to 5 valuation specialists, in truth, and promised anonymity in change for his or her secret sauce.
“It’s art and science,” one analyst famous.
The intent of the train under is to not forecast precisely how the negotiations will play out or predict which networks will accomplice with the respective conferences. As a substitute, our aim is to offer context for one element of the method.
And within the curiosity of full transparency, we must always begin with a number of necessary acknowledgments:
— We targeted on soccer, which usually accounts for no less than 80 % of any convention’s media valuation.
Due to Gonzaga’s presence within the new Pac-12 and the potential for tonnage (i.e., amount) to play an necessary function for streaming corporations, that quantity may show to be barely decrease. However regardless of the actual proportion, soccer will dominate the valuation.
— Our pattern measurement is small.
The Hotline examined a single season of knowledge, whereas media rights negotiations are usually based mostly on viewership developments over the course of years.
Nonetheless, the 2024 soccer season carries explicit relevance as a result of it removes any skewing of viewership created by former Pac-12 members and focuses on Washington State and Oregon State, the 2 remaining colleges since August of final 12 months.
— We relied on knowledge revealed by the invaluable SportsMediaWatch web site, which has entry to the coveted Nielsen rankings. Whereas that may appear to supply a complete accounting, there’s a caveat: CBS Sports activities Community, which co-owns the Mountain West’s media rights with Fox, shouldn’t be a Nielsen-rated community.
In consequence, our calculations don’t embrace a slew of Mountain West video games that have been proven on CBSSN final season. The scope is proscribed to Fox broadcasts.
— Market measurement is central to the method of valuing media rights, however assessing the related marketplace for any given college might be subjective. It’s about greater than geography, based on trade specialists. It’s additionally about being “having a voice” available in the market, as one supply famous.
For instance, San Jose State is situated within the huge Bay Space media market, however it’s troublesome to make the case SJSU is related within the area — that the Spartans have “a voice.”
The identical goes for Northern Illinois, which is situated in DeKalb, 60 miles from Chicago. Do the Huskies resonate within the nation’s No. 3 media market, with all its professional groups? We’re skeptical.
Then there’s the curious case of Washington State, which isn’t a part of the Seattle media market however has followers — 1000’s and 1000’s of followers — in western Washington. One trade knowledgeable mentioned the Cougars have “enough of a following” to obtain credit score for the Seattle market.
One other instance: Ought to Fresno State be included within the Sacramento market, which is the twentieth largest within the nation and stretches south to inside 90 miles of Fresno. The Bulldogs are the one FBS staff in California’s huge Central Valley and have followers all through the area.
All of which is one other approach to say our back-of-the-envelope math is an try to offer followers with an affordable evaluation of the scenario for each conferences. The one gospel on this course of shall be preached on the negotiating desk, not on the Hotline.
We started by tallying the rankings for all video games involving Pac-12 and Mountain West groups based mostly on how the conferences shall be constructed in 2026. There’s no cause to credit score the Mountain West with Boise State’s viewership knowledge, as an example, as a result of the convention gained’t take these numbers to the negotiating desk.
For the file, video games involving the brand new Pac-12 generated 33.1 million viewers in 2024, a median of 720,000, whereas the brand new Mountain West collected 22.5 million viewers, for a median of 535,000. (Figures are rounded.)
Nonetheless, the file is bunk.
Neither the media firm executives nor the conferences’ consultants — the Pac-12 employed Octagon; the Mountain West has retained Endeavor — will doubtless current these numbers within the negotiations.
They need apples-to-apples comparisons, and whole viewership knowledge is apples-to-avocados.
For instance, Northern Illinois’ upset of Notre Dame early final season drew an viewers of three.93 million on NBC. However the sport was a one-off — the primary matchup ever between the faculties and, presumably, the final. They don’t seem to be scheduled to fulfill once more, rendering the viewership irrelevant to any evaluation of NIU’s future media worth.
In keeping with trade specialists, media valuation evaluation focuses on the video games managed by the convention in query. In different phrases: on dwelling video games.
In order that’s precisely what we did. The Hotline filtered for all Pac-12 and Mountain West dwelling video games through the 2024 season based mostly on how the conferences shall be structured when the brand new media offers start. San Jose State’s journey to Washington State, which drew 542,000 viewers on The CW, was included within the new Pac-12’s whole whereas Washington State’s go to to New Mexico, which drew 244,000 on FS1, was assigned to the brand new Mountain West.
In all, the brand new Pac-12 performed 27 dwelling video games listed within the SportsMediaWatch rankings database; these averaged 639,000 viewers. There have been 14 Mountain West dwelling video games listed; they averaged 323,000 viewers.
In the event you’re scoring at dwelling, a pattern needs to be rising. The brand new Pac-12 averaged 26 % extra viewers than the brand new Mountain West in all video games (720,000 in comparison with 535,000). However the Pac-12 viewers was double that of the Mountain West (639,000 to 323,000) once we filtered for dwelling video games solely — partly as a result of the Northern Illinois-Notre Dame quantity is eliminated.
Spoiler alert: As we proceed to drill down, the disparity will improve.
(Observe: We didn’t embrace the Mountain West championship sport between Boise State and UNLV, which was performed in Boise and drew greater than 3 million viewers.)
The subsequent layer — based mostly on the recommendation of two trade specialists — was to look at the rankings for brand new vs. new matchups. By that, we imply video games involving two groups from the brand new Pac-12 (Washington State towards Boise State, for instance) or two groups from the brand new Mountain West (Air Drive towards Nevada).
Sadly, there was a paucity of the latter. Our hunch is most video games matching new Mountain West towards new Mountain West have been on CBS Sports activities Community.
Nonetheless, the little proof out there is hanging. The eight video games pairing groups that shall be a part of the brand new Pac-12 averaged 626,000 viewers, whereas the three video games pairing groups within the new Mountain West averaged 59,000 viewers.
That’s not a misprint, people.
The Mountain West’s three new vs. new video games have been Nevada-San Jose State (28,000 viewers), Air Drive-New Mexico (52,000) and Air Drive-Nevada (98,000).
The Pac-12’s eight new. vs. new matchups included Washington State-Boise State (535,000 viewers), Colorado State-Oregon State (568,000) and Oregon State-Boise State (1.7 million).
We then targeted on a barely totally different calculation: viewer hours. It’s a typical trade knowledge level that tracks what’s often known as cumulative consumption — or whole impressions, as some describe it.
Basically, viewer hours differentiate between one sport that attracts 10 million viewers and 5 video games that every draw 2 million viewers. Though whole eyeballs are equivalent, the latter state of affairs would presumably enable advertisers to succeed in a wider viewers.
It’s simple to calculate: Multiply the common viewers by the variety of video games, then multiply by 3.5 hours (commonplace broadcast time).
Complete viewer hours for the eight video games that paired new Pac-12 groups: 17,528,000.
Complete viewers for the three video games that paired new Mountain West groups: 619,500.
Admittedly, this knowledge level displays our pattern measurement concern — particularly, not getting access to the CBS Sports activities Community viewership numbers. To supply a greater comparability, we re-ran the numbers assuming the identical variety of new vs. new video games for every convention.
Including 5 video games to the Mountain West’s whole, with a median of 59,000 viewers, led to a complete of 1,652,000 viewer hours — nonetheless solely a fraction of the brand new Pac-12’s whole.
Our remaining knowledge dive targeted on the function the departing Mountain West colleges performed within the convention’s whole viewership.
We checked out video games matching groups that can stay within the convention in 2026 (Nevada vs. San Jose State) and in contrast that to viewership for video games during which no less than one staff is leaping into the Pac-12 (Fresno State vs. New Mexico).
The three Mountain West video games with each groups scheduled to stay within the convention averaged 59,000 viewers, as famous above. In the meantime, the 9 Mountain West video games during which no less than one college is departing for the Pac-12 averaged 328,000 viewers — a five-fold distinction.
Now, just a few phrases on the (considerably subjective) matter of market measurement.
The Hotline didn’t give the brand new Mountain West credit score for the Chicago or Bay Space markets. You can’t persuade us that San Jose State and Northern Illinois resonate deeply sufficient in both metropolitan space to materially influence valuations.
We did give, nonetheless, give Fresno State credit score for the Sacramento market based mostly on anecdotal proof that the Bulldogs are related all through the Central Valley.
Lastly, we tried to be cheap with Washington State and gave the Cougars credit score for half of the Seattle market. As a substitute of two.1 million houses, we positioned 1.05 million within the Pac-12’s allotment.
All in all, media markets with the brand new Mountain West colleges cowl 3.1 million houses, whereas markets with the brand new Pac-12 colleges cowl 9.2 million houses. The brand new Mountain West has two top-50 markets; the brand new Pac-12 has six.
(Caveat: The figures are based mostly on Nielsen market knowledge from 2021, and there assuredly has been some change.)
The Hotline gained’t start to assign a greenback determine to the media markets — that’s far past our scope. Nonetheless, we are able to provide a morsel of perception into what the conferences can count on based mostly on the viewership knowledge offered above.
Admittedly, the Hotline is skeptical that quantity might be secured for the brand new mixture of faculties with out leaning into different funding sources. However for the needs of this train, let’s use $3.5 million because the per-school payout determine.
With that because the baseline, what ought to the brand new Pac-12 count on given the huge disparity in 2024 audiences? Keep in mind, the eight video games involving groups that shall be a part of the brand new Pac-12 averaged 626,000 viewers, whereas the three video games involving groups within the new Mountain West averaged 59,000.
A conservative estimate suggests the Pac-12 ought to command no less than 3 times the Mountain West’s common annual worth, thus making a goal determine within the $9 million-to-$10 million vary.
Relying on the variety of bidders and the style during which the Pac-12 packages its stock, the full might climb a tick above $10 million per college. Possibly it dips barely under $9 million.
Or maybe the brand new Mountain West solely receives $2.5 million per college, which means a 3x valuation ends in the brand new Pac-12 amassing $7.5 million.
Nonetheless it unfolds, the stark distinction in viewership signifies the rebuilt conferences are on totally different tiers within the media rights valuation sport. The small print ought to grow to be clear someday this spring.
Initially Printed: February 20, 2025 at 9:06 AM PST
