Pac-12 Gets One-Year Test-Run Media Deal Before Expansion

The Pac-12 has agreed to a one-year media rights deal with The CW, ESPN, and CBS to broadcast OSU and WSU football for the 2025-26 season, the league said Tuesday. 

The deal will take the league through the remainder of its two-member period as it prepares to welcome six new members in 2026 and complete an unprecedented rebuild after being picked apart in the summer of 2023. 

Nine of the games will appear on The CW, all of which will be produced by the league’s revamped broadcast arm, Pac-12 Enterprises. Two games will appear on ESPN, and two will appear on CBS Television Network and Paramount+. Financial details were not disclosed.

“Having Pac-12 football featured across three leading broadcasters in CBS, The CW and ESPN in 2025 will provide tremendous exposure to showcase Oregon State, Washington State and our brand in the Pac-12’s final season before expansion,” Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould said in a statement.

To complete its rebuild, the league now needs two things: An eighth FBS football-playing member and a long-term media rights deal. Octagon has led the media rights search, negotiating both a long-term deal starting in 2026 and the one-year interim package simultaneously, a Pac-12 source tells FOS. Discussions are still ongoing about the long-term package, though ideally the 2025 deal will serve as a test-run of sorts for networks that could sign onto a future package, the source noted. Gould previously said she expects a package with multiple broadcasters and partners that will be “transformational.”

The league nearly went extinct two summers ago, when former commissioner George Kliavkoff failed to convince Pac-12 university presidents to sign a media rights deal and keep the conference together. (The league had already lost USC and UCLA to the Big Ten in the summer of 2022.) Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State announced they would join the Big 12; Oregon and Washington joined the Big Ten, and Stanford and Cal joined the ACC.

The moves became official last year, leaving the Pac-12 with just two members: Oregon State and Washington State. Instead of finding other conference homes, however, the two schools sued for the rights to the league and tens of millions in exit fees from departing members, and used the resources to hire a new commissioner in Gould and signed a scheduling partnership with the Mountain West for football (and a modest media deal with The CW and Fox Sports) as well as an affiliate conference deal with the West Coast Conference for other sports. 

But the league had aspirations beyond just interim contingency plans. Last fall, the Pac-12 poached five schools from the Mountain West: Colorado State, Utah State, San Diego State, Fresno State, and Boise State. That set off yet another round of realignment and sparking litigation between the two conferences that some speculated would have merged. The league also added Gonzaga for basketball. 

The six programs will officially join the Pac-12 in 2026. The NCAA allows a two-year grace period for leagues that fall below eight FBS football playing members to retain their FBS status—and the Pac-12 will get in right under the wire, with all programs joining in 2026. 

The Pac-12 still needs one more FBS football-playing member, however. But it has been focused on a media rights package first, Front Office Sports has previously reported.