The Pac-12 has added USA Sports—the new sports arm of Versant Media—to its growing broadcast portfolio when the league expands next year.
It’s the latest step in the league’s remarkable rebuild since being picked apart in the summer of 2023.
Starting next season, the league has a five-year deal to broadcast a multitude of games on USA Network: 22 regular-season football games; 50 regular-season men’s basketball games, and between five and 10 regular-season women’s basketball games per year. The men’s basketball tournament will air on USA Sports up to the championship game, which will air on CBS. The league’s broadcasting arm, Pac-12 Enterprises, will produce all of the games that will appear on USA Network.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
“The new Pac-12 is where tradition meets transformation — a unique opportunity in the rapidly evolving college sports landscape that strongly aligns with the go-forward vision of USA Sports,” said Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould.
It’s a marriage of two new upstart properties—the new-look Pac-12 and the newly formed USA Sports, part of Versant, the parent company spun off from Comcast that includes CNBC, MSNBC, Golf Channel, USA Network, and others. The Pac-12 will be the sole college football offering on USA Sports.
The Pac-12 now counts USA Sports among its media partners in addition to The CW and CBS.
In 2023, the Pac-12 lost all but two of its members—Washington State and Oregon State—after a failed media rights negotiation left the 100-year-old league vulnerable to a vicious round of conference realignment. The conference didn’t fold, however; the two schools sued to retain ownership of Pac-12 intellectual property. It then appointed Gould as commissioner, formed a football scheduling partnership with the Mountain West, and an Olympic sports conference affiliation agreement with the West Coast Conference to keep the two schools afloat.
In the fall of 2024, the league made major moves. It announced it would add five Mountain West schools: San Diego State, Boise State, Utah State, Fresno State, and Colorado State (and is now embroiled in litigation with the Mountain West related to this move). The league later added Texas State and Gonzaga.
The rebuild isn’t complete, however. The league also still has media rights on the market, meaning it might gain more partners.
