Starting next year, USA Sports will broadcast 22 regular-season Pac-12 football games, 50 regular-season men’s basketball games and five to 10 regular-season women’s basketball games each season. It will also broadcast the men’s basketball tournament through the championship game, which will be on CBS. The Pac-12 will produce all games on USA Sports.
USA Network is part of the new media company Versant, which is being spun off from Comcast/NBC into a separate company. It includes CNBC, Golf Channel, SyFy and MSNBC (soon to be MSNOW). Versant on Tuesday announced “USA Sports” as the sports division of its new company. USA Network also has Atlantic 10 college basketball, Premier League football, NASCAR Cup Series playoff races and WWE Friday Night SmackDown.
“This partnership with the Pac-12 adds high-quality college football to our portfolio at USA Sports, which will largely consist of Saturday doubleheaders,” USA Sports president Matt Hong said. The Athletics. “Our partnership with the Pac-12 strengthens our USA Sports portfolio and further establishes USA Network as a destination for elite sports and entertainment.”
The new Pac-12 will consist of Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State in all sports, plus non-football Gonzaga in all other sports. Affiliates include Dallas Baptist (baseball), Northern Illinois (wrestling) and Southern Utah (women’s gymnastics).
With the addition of USA Sports, all Pac-12 football games will appear on linear TV networks. Football will include 22 games on USA Sports, 13 on The CW, up to 10 on CBS Sports Network and a minimum of three regular season games on CBS (and Paramount Plus streaming), along with the Pac-12 championship game on CBS.
Most media rights for men’s basketball have been settled. That includes 50 games and most of the conference tournament on USA Sports, 35 on The CW, up to 17 on CBS Sports Network and at least three on CBS/Paramount Plus, along with the conference tournament championship game.
The women’s basketball rights are not yet complete, but will currently include 15 regular-season games on The CW (plus the conference tournament finals and semifinals) and five to 10 games on USA Sports. Plans for most Olympic sports rights are still being finalized.
“We are excited to launch this partnership with the USA Sports team and leverage our shared vision to build something unique and special,” Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould said in a statement.
— The Athletics‘s Richard Deitsch contributed to this report.
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