Big 12 close to $2.28B media deal with ESPN, Fox
The Big 12 is near completion of a six-year media deal extension with ESPN and Fox Sports that is expected to be worth $380 million a year and will take hold starting in 2025.
- $2.28 billion over 6 years = $380 million per year. Split 12 ways = $31,666,666.67. The 12 schools are the current Big 12, minus Oklahoma and Texas, and with the additions of UCF, Cincy, BYU, and Houston.
- The previous split for the Big 12 was $22 million, so they actually are making more money without Oklahoma and Texas. HOWEVER, considering the Big Ten and SEC schools ballooning to $60+ million payouts per school they are falling behind in P5.
- UCF and Cincinnati are going from $7 million per year to almost $32 million with their move up to the Big 12.
- The ACC distributes somewhere between $28 and $32 million per school per year. UCF will regularly be making more media money than Florida State lol. The ACC is somehow locked into this media deal until 2036 (this Big 12 could have 2 more media deals that timespan). I'm going to guess the conference finds a way to blow up before then.
- ESPN gets the first pick of Big 12 games, however it's unlikely those will trump SEC games for primetime/ABC slots. This could be potentially damaging imo. And with Fox putting the #1 Big Ten game at the noon slot, I think you're going to see the #2 Big Ten game on CBS regularly outperforming the #1 Big 12 game on ESPN.
- The Pac-12 is royally boned. Networks have filled a lot of their time slots going forward, and it's not like networks will try to outbid each other for Colorado-Washington State. Look for literally every Pac-12 team to try to join basically any other conference, but only a few would actually drive up value elsewhere.
