The financial impact of losing USC, UCLA to the Big Ten on Pac-12 TV deal

Losing USC and UCLA were devastating blows to the Pac-12, which is gearing up to negotiate a new TV deal. Thursday, sports media insiders Andrew Marchand and John Ourand discussed how big it was.

During an episode of The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast, Marchand said he received an estimation about the impact USC and UCLA’s departures will have on the negotiations. He said he heard the Pac-12’s next deal could be 40% less than what it would’ve been with the two high-profile schools in the league.

Ourand said he heard some different numbers, but 40% sounds close to what he was told. But the Pac-12 is also losing games as a result of the departures, which also makes a difference n negotiations.

“That’s at the high side of what I was hearing, but it certainly is within the ballpark,” Ourand said. “If you just do it without thinking about how good those teams are and then how big the LA media market is, they’re losing like 20% of actual games if you take out those two markets. So 40% is certainly within the mark right there.”

It was a virtual consensus opinion that the Pac-12 would lose money in its next round of media rights negotiations. The league’s current media deal runs through 2024 — the same year USC and UCLA will officially join the Big Ten. But less than a week after USC and UCLA left, the league voted to start immediate negotiations toward the next agreement.

“The Pac-12 Board of Directors met this morning and authorized the Conference to immediately begin negotiations for its next media rights agreements,” the league’s statement read.

However, an interesting proposal could be in the works, according to Sports Illustrated. The ACC and Pac-12 could work together on a media partnership, which would allow Pac-12 games to be shown on the ACC Network or a new ESPN network. The biggest question is whether it would create enough TV revenue to be worth it.