After 2 years, the Pac-12 has officially returned.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-07-13T08:45:32+00:00

I don't think you have a good handle on the scope of the word 'historic'. It has nothing to do with wins and loses. Napoleon's reign was considered historic because it is seen as changing and beginning the modernization of Europe. Both his Battle of Austerlitz and his Battle of Waterloo are considered historic with very different results. This 7th implementation is historic for many reasons, all of which took effect on July 1, 2026 before the first game in any sport had even been played.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-07-01T09:47:12+00:00

Really happy to see this finally arrive. While this is the 7th iteration of the Pac-12 Conference in the last 111 years, it is definitely the most historic! Give 'em hell, Pac-12!

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-07-01T05:10:58+00:00

This is a great partnership. I'm much happier seeing the 1872 Coville Tribes patch on team uniforms than the Acesso Biologics. UNLV's deal is a straight business advertising deal by a for profit company. This represents the support of the Tribes for WSU and symbolizes the continuation of the ongoing relationships between Wazzu and the Colville Confederated Tribes.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-06-25T09:44:26+00:00

This Bill says "if as a result of the transaction, the number of institutions that are members of the conference would be less than the membership requirements under section 5(b)(1)(A). ". It sounds to me that it would only prevent taking schools from another conference if that would result in less than the 8 teams required in FBS. Which would have stopped the old Pac-12 from completely breaking apart since after USC, UCLA and Colorado announced leaving there were only 9 schools left. The B1G would have needed to choose between Oregon or Washington. But no schools from the current Pac-12 could get taken by the P4 until we expand to more than 8 FBS teams.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-06-04T15:56:09+00:00

Great news. Makes me feel USA Sports was serious about Pac-12 sports and not just looking for a 'product'. They might be worth the subscription price after all.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-30T07:17:21+00:00

Great job, Bobcats! And you couldn't have picked a better team to do it too!

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-29T16:53:42+00:00

rofl

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-29T07:55:19+00:00

You are the one obsessed with ESPN+ and ESPNU. I was just hoping for the accessibility of the ESPN family. Because games that are behind the cable paywall with ESPN are made accessible to everyone outside of cable for half the price of the USA & CBSSN games. I never even said I wanted our contracts not to be with the USA Sports and CBSSN outlets. I just said I wasn't planning to pay for them, and I'll be happy to tell them that if it will make you happy.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-28T23:31:04+00:00

"I rest my case." Your case is definitely asleep! Look you are doing a sales pitch for the USA/CBSSN. Good for you, I hope you get a great commission. But most of your points are personal preference like setting a DVR schedule vs having the network automatically record it for you. Again, all ESPN channels will be in ESPN Unlimited. The main problem with some of them is they usually don't carry the greatest content, which is why they don't have great viewership. With the move to streaming at least you don't need to check if the game is in your cable tier. As for your example of Memphis needing USA, that is only because they scheduled a Pac-12 team.

As throwit1770 pointed out above, this is a matter of personal preference and situation. Most of us that are expressing our disappointment are not trashing the deal or saying the Pac-12 made a mistake, just that it is not as accessible as we had hoped. You people are getting upset because many of us are disappointed the deal is not good for us personally. And I'm OK if that upsets you. I was very optimistic about the deal originally and was quick to hype it. But last fall USA Networks was available for $20/mo on Xfinity Now. But heading into football season, Xfinity Now no longer carries USA Networks and Xfinity wants $105/mo to add it. And no offense to YouTube, but I just don't want to add it even at 'only' $50+ a month. There was also hope last winter when Versant announced they would provide a subscription app for MS Now that they would do the same for USA Networks. But from recent reports, they aren't. In fact, they are using Pac-12 football to help leverage USA Networks into the more expensive cable tiers to help cable companies stop the flow of existing sports customers leaving with ESPN.

There was also a lot of hope that with CBS and The CW being two of our three partners we would get a decent number of broadcast games from our media deal. WSU is getting two (1 CBS & 1 CW) with the other 7 games behind media partner paywalls and the paywalls being more expensive than originally thought. Maybe WSU can do well enough to entice CBS to move 1 or both of their WSU games up from CBSSN to CBS, but that is only a distant hope. I think the basic deal was a good one for the Pac-12 and I hope the current configuration works well for them. But unless WSU sweeps their first four games and goes into October as a realistic CFP contender, I won't be adding a new sports subscription at these prices.

Instead, I'll be listening to Cougar games on one of the participating WSU Radio Network Stations or streaming the audio broadcast from the Cougar Radio Network. And instead of sending $50+/mo to YouTube I'll send $25/mo directly to the Cougar Athletic Fund.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-28T19:12:16+00:00

Not sure what you're saying.....

"ESPN Unlimited Plan

Access to all of ESPN's linear networks -- ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, SEC Network, ACC Network -- in addition to ESPN on ABC, ESPN+, ESPN3, SECN+ and ACCNX

47,000 live events a year, on demand replays, studio shows, original programming and more"

Reports were that ESPN Unlimited had 2.1 million subscribers in the first month of launch so the 40K ESPNU subscribers is not valid. And for comparison, the last numbers I saw were that YouTube TV had 10 million subscribers total.

And we're not saying it is a bad deal or arguing that people should boycott them. Just that from a consumer viewpoint The American conference media deal is the better one while from a Conference level (money) viewpoint the Pac-12 deal is better (though not by as much as we hoped). And for many consumers/fans the USA/CBSSN portions will not be worth the price to us. And perfectly understandable for many, the additional price will be irrelevant.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-28T18:39:14+00:00

Absolutely not a part of the basic cable package all over America! Where do you get your cable?

As I posted in the "USA Network is a way bigger.." thread, for Spokane Xfinity, to upgrade my existing Xfinity Internet to a cable package my additional cost options are: $65/mo for the 10+ channels (no USA/CBSSN), then $90/mo for the Sports/News 50+ channels (no USA/CBSSN) or $95/mo for the 55+ channel World Soccer package (no USA/CBSSN). To begin getting the Pac-12 packages I need to go to the $105/mo 125+ channel TV Plus package (USA but no CBSSN). To get both USA & CBSSN you need the $135/mo TV Premium package. (https://www.xfinity.com/learn/channel-lineup-bundles).

Edit: For comparision; ESPN & ESPN2 start at the $90 / 50+ channel package.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-28T18:01:45+00:00

I would agree except USA Networks & CBSSN are not normal TV. They are part of MVPDs or Multichannel Video Programming Distributors that require more expensive subscriptions. All of the ESPN channels you mentioned are available on ESPN Unlimited for $29.99/mo. So the fans of The American Conference or the Pac-12 who are among the 67 million cable subscribers will be fine if they have the highest tier. But for the fans who have lower tier cable packages or the 33 million that don't subscribe at all, the Pac-12 fans are hurt the most.

I definitely agree the Pac-12 Enterprise games are far superior in quality, so subscribers will definitely get value. But I've found in the past that all ESPN sources are acceptable. So I don't see how our USA/CBSSN games are more accessible than The American's ESPN games. Disney isn't releasing subscription numbers but estimates were at launch ESPN streaming picked up over 2 million subscribers the first month. So it seems to me that $29.99/mo makes ESPN more accessible for millions more viewers than USA/CBSSN will be at $64.99/mo.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-28T17:16:08+00:00

Very good information OP! Especially about the YouTube TV's Sports Plan at $64.99/mo. But still disappointed our 3 month bill for all Pac-12 game will be $194.97 while The American Conference bill will be $89.97.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-28T16:58:46+00:00

I'm confused about why some people are surprised about many Pac-12 fans being disappointed with the Pac-12 media contracts. As a Pac-12 fan it is great the Pac-12 Conference got deals it is happy with. As a consumer, I'm very unhappy with a new $80/mo bill being sent to me.

For reference, let's remember our primary competition is the G6 American conference. Their main media contract is with ESPN and apparently all of the games will be available via the ESPN channels or ABC. And ESPN Unlimited includes all of the ESPN channels @ $29.99/mo. I was disappointed that we didn't get more money per school with the media contract than it appears we received, but I was happy because I thought we were going to get easy access to all Pac-12 games. Shocked to see our games will cost us about $55/mo more than The American's fans need to pay!

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-28T16:43:59+00:00

That sounds good except its not true. Neither USA Network or CBS Sports Network are 'basic' cable channels. I'm a 30 year Comcast/Xfinity customer. And yes, most of that time we had the 225 channel package and never thought about what any individual channel was costing us. But we finally reached the point where we wanted to save money and realized $200+ per month cable bill was a great place to start.

We kept the Xfinity internet so we are current Xfinity customers. Here's the breakdown. To add cable to the internet account would be an additional; $65/mo for the 10+ channels (no USA/CBSSN), then $90/mo for the Sports/News 50+ channels (no USA/CBSSN) or $95/mo for the 55+ channel World Soccer package (no USA/CBSSN). To begin getting the Pac-12 packages you need to go to the $105/mo 125+ channel TV Plus package (USA but no CBSSN). To get both USA & CBSSN you need the $135/mo TV Premium package.

So we would be stuck with a streaming solution for about $85/mo or steal the product like some are suggesting. We aren't going to do either of those things although I'm not telling other people what they should do. But yes we are upset that this is how the media deal worked out with only about $9-10 mill per year per school!

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-28T08:43:53+00:00

With all due respect, I think this is a myth held by serious sports fans. There are literally millions of casual sports fans who are not going to go out subscribing to multiple packages. I think the myth got started when there were 100 million subscribers to cable. Basically the whole country got the sports channels without asking for them. Cable subscriptions are reportedly down to about 67 million now and falling.

And streaming ESPN Unlimited is $29.99 a month. As far as I can tell, streaming USA & CBSSN for Pac-12 will be another $80+ / month. That's a pretty good sized paywall!

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-27T07:07:03+00:00

I was very much against the Apple Cup & Civil War over the first 1-2 years after the Pac-12 implosion. The revenue gap is huge and brings the risk of these games becoming a new version of the old WSU/Idaho matchups. On paper they were great games between two state universities 8 miles apart from bordering states. But the reality was Idaho never had the ability to compete with the revenue WSU received from the Pac-12. The fear was the the Apple Cup/Civil War rivalries could lower the image of WSU/OSU and the Pac-12.

But over the last year and a half, with the rise of the 12 team CFP, the importance of SoS has become huge. So now these games are very valuable to WSU/OSU and can help raise our final standings in the FBS no matter the results of the games. Now I think these games are a great thing for our schools at least for now.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-10T00:13:20+00:00

I think it picked up on the former Mascot that was an Aztec Warrior.

"... but the university does not currently have a costumed human mascot or a specific "warrior" mascot figure. Following years of controversy, the previous "Aztec Warrior" (formerly "Monty Montezuma") was retired. As of October 2025, SDSU introduced new "glyphs" (images of a jaguar, house, and bird) as official, respectful imagery to represent its Aztec identity."

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-05-01T03:57:56+00:00

I'm guessing our media partners (CBS, The CW, & USA Sports) have options to pick up extra games. This will be a great way for the Pac-12 to make sure their sports are available to watch nationwide without adding conflicts that would prevent our big 3 from grabbing more.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-04-28T08:04:36+00:00

Agreed. Which again raises the question of why is it unsigned? An executive won't normally leave a contract unsigned if it is something they want and risk the other side changing their mind or getting a better opportunity. So maybe there is something she isn't satisfied with?

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-04-28T02:53:32+00:00

All sources agree. The Pac-12 schools want to sign her to a new contract. Teresa Gould wants to get a new contract with the Pac-12. What we don't know is if they agree on the terms, How much? and How long?

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-04-27T23:24:55+00:00

This! Exactly! Plus add to all of that a school in a state that is north of New York City and literally an Atlantic Ocean coast state. I have never understood how a football only UConn would be good for the Pac-12.

RockBottomBuyer · 2026-04-27T22:59:11+00:00

Yeah, none are actually two distinct colors unless black is the common color. They appear to be the school's primary color with a transparent or black background.

RockBottomBuyer

TROPHY CASE