KevFu
Registered User
I’d be interested to know the financial details of the rumored proposal in ~2018 from ESPN to Larry Scott. In which ESPN would take over delivery of the PAC12 Network and extend their existing media deal with the PAC12 at “tier 1“ rates.
Hard to say without knowing the numbers, but that may have been a missed opportunity to avoid the USC/UCLA departure and keep the PAC intact.
One of the things I was saying back then, was that a "business merger" of the Big Ten/Pac-12 would be incredibly smart, with the key goal being the Big Ten Network absorbs the Pac-12 Network.
They still play as separate conferences with multiple auto-bids to tournaments; but with a season-long "Rose Series" of games -- like the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, but instead of taking 1-3 days on the calendar, it's one football game per week; and two basketball games every Saturday, and also has games by the top teams in every sport.
The Big Ten Network would get higher carriage numbers out west with Pac-12 games, and higher than the Pac-12 got without FOX backing.
And each side would be adding time slots of live games they didn't have before because of time zones.