The college football season is here, but that doesn’t mean the talk of re-alignment and media rights deals is over. Greg McElroy was on the Dan Patrick Show on Tuesday. When the host asked him about re-alignment in the face of the expanded College Football Playoff, the former Alabama quarterback revealed something interesting.
“I’m not sure what the Pac-12’s deal is gonna look like. That deal’s being currently negotiated,” McElroy said. “Based on what I’ve heard, I’ve heard they may structure it in a way where every team has their own deal.”
What would that mean exactly? Other conferences have had media rights deals that allow individual teams to negotiate part of their own rights. According to what McElroy has heard though, it sounds like the Pac-12 is working on an overall deal that assigns value to individual teams.
“Let’s say ESPN for example gets the deal. They sign a deal with Oregon, they sign a deal with the Pac-12, but Oregon’s payout is different from Cal.”
Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren recently said he sees his conference expanding to 20 teams, and news has linked that there is plenty of interest from some current Pac-12 members in occupying one of those last four spots. Greg McElroy, who calls games for ESPN and ABC, pointed out the interesting position this could put his employer in.
“If Oregon went to the Big Ten, ESPN would retain Oregon’s rights and get a piece of the Big Ten deal.”
McElroy was careful to mention these are just rumors that he is hearing and he has no inside knowledge of the negotiations.
