At some point this spring, the rebuilt Pac-12 is expected to sign a media rights agreement to begin in 2026 and span the remainder of the decade. The rebuilt Mountain West is likely to do the same, creating a fascinating twist to the realignment game: Neighboring conferences, battered by departures and revitalized by expansion, are concurrently seeking media deals to secure their futures.
What is a realistic valuation for the new Pac-12 after raiding the Mountain West for Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State, then grabbing Gonzaga from the West Coast Conference? (All six are scheduled to join the conference in July ’26.)
Is the Pac-12 worth substantially more than its reconstituted neighbor, which added Northern Illinois in football and UTEP in all sports, plus UC Davis and Grand Canyon as members in everything except football?
The Hotline attempted to gain clarity on each conference’s market value by plunging into TV ratings data and applying industry methodology. We spoke to five valuation experts, in fact, and promised anonymity in exchange for their secret sauce.
“It’s art and science,” one analyst noted.
The intent of the exercise below is not to forecast exactly how the negotiations will play out or predict which networks will partner with the respective conferences. Instead, our goal is to provide context for one component of the process.
And in the interest of full transparency, we should start with several important acknowledgments:
— We focused on football, which typically accounts for at least 80 percent of any conference’s media valuation.
Because of Gonzaga’s presence in the new Pac-12 and the potential for tonnage (i.e., quantity) to play an important role for streaming companies, that number might prove to be slightly lower. But whatever the exact percentage, football will dominate the valuation.
— Our sample size is small.
The Hotline examined a single season of data, whereas media rights negotiations are typically based on viewership trends over the course of years.
However, the 2024 football season carries particular relevance because it removes any skewing of viewership created by former Pac-12 members and focuses on Washington State and Oregon State, the two remaining schools since August of last year.
— We relied on data published by the invaluable SportsMediaWatch website, which has access to the coveted Nielsen ratings. While that might seem to offer a comprehensive accounting, there’s a caveat: CBS Sports Network, which co-owns the Mountain West’s media rights with Fox, is not a Nielsen-rated network.
As a result, our calculations do not include a slew of Mountain West games that were shown on CBSSN last season. The scope is limited to Fox broadcasts.
— Market size is central to the process of valuing media rights, but assessing the relevant market for any given school can be subjective. It’s about more than geography, according to industry experts. It’s also about being “having a voice” in the market, as one source noted.
For example, San Jose State is located in the massive Bay Area media market, but it’s difficult to make the case SJSU is relevant in the region — that the Spartans have “a voice.”
The same goes for Northern Illinois, which is located in DeKalb, 60 miles from Chicago. Do the Huskies resonate in the nation’s No. 3 media market, with all its pro teams? We’re skeptical.
Then there’s the curious case of Washington State, which is not part of the Seattle media market but has fans — thousands and thousands of fans — in western Washington. One industry expert said the Cougars have “enough of a following” to receive credit for the Seattle market.
Another example: Should Fresno State be included in the Sacramento market, which is the 20th largest in the country and stretches south to within 90 miles of Fresno. The Bulldogs are the only FBS team in California’s massive Central Valley and have fans throughout the region.
All of which is another way to say our back-of-the-envelope math is an attempt to provide fans with a reasonable assessment of the situation for both conferences. The only gospel in this process will be preached at the negotiating table, not on the Hotline.
We began by tallying the ratings for all games involving Pac-12 and Mountain West teams based on how the conferences will be constructed in 2026. There’s no reason to credit the Mountain West with Boise State’s viewership data, for instance, because the conference won’t take those numbers to the negotiating table.
For the record, games involving the new Pac-12 generated 33.1 million viewers in 2024, an average of 720,000, while the new Mountain West collected 22.5 million viewers, for an average of 535,000. (Figures are rounded.)
However, the record is bunk.
Neither the media company executives nor the conferences’ consultants — the Pac-12 hired Octagon; the Mountain West has retained Endeavor — will likely present those numbers in the negotiations.
They want apples-to-apples comparisons, and total viewership data is apples-to-avocados.
For example, Northern Illinois’ upset of Notre Dame early last season drew an audience of 3.93 million on NBC. But the game was a one-off — the first matchup ever between the schools and, presumably, the last. They are not scheduled to meet again, rendering the viewership irrelevant to any assessment of NIU’s future media value.
According to industry experts, media valuation analysis focuses on the games controlled by the conference in question. In other words: on home games.
So that’s exactly what we did. The Hotline filtered for all Pac-12 and Mountain West home games during the 2024 season based on how the conferences will be structured when the new media deals begin. San Jose State’s trip to Washington State, which drew 542,000 viewers on The CW, was included in the new Pac-12’s total while Washington State’s visit to New Mexico, which drew 244,000 on FS1, was assigned to the new Mountain West.
In all, the new Pac-12 played 27 home games listed in the SportsMediaWatch ratings database; those averaged 639,000 viewers. There were 14 Mountain West home games listed; they averaged 323,000 viewers.
If you’re scoring at home, a trend should be emerging. The new Pac-12 averaged 26 percent more viewers than the new Mountain West in all games (720,000 compared to 535,000). But the Pac-12 audience was double that of the Mountain West (639,000 to 323,000) when we filtered for home games only — in part because the Northern Illinois-Notre Dame number is removed.
Spoiler alert: As we continue to drill down, the disparity will increase.
(Note: We did not include the Mountain West championship game between Boise State and UNLV, which was played in Boise and drew more than 3 million viewers.)
The next layer — based on the advice of two industry experts — was to examine the ratings for new vs. new matchups. By that, we mean games involving two teams from the new Pac-12 (Washington State against Boise State, for example) or two teams from the new Mountain West (Air Force against Nevada).
Unfortunately, there was a paucity of the latter. Our hunch is most games matching new Mountain West against new Mountain West were on CBS Sports Network.
However, the little evidence available is striking. The eight games pairing teams that will be part of the new Pac-12 averaged 626,000 viewers, while the three games pairing teams in the new Mountain West averaged 59,000 viewers.
That’s not a misprint, folks.
The Mountain West’s three new vs. new games were Nevada-San Jose State (28,000 viewers), Air Force-New Mexico (52,000) and Air Force-Nevada (98,000).
The Pac-12’s eight new. vs. new matchups included Washington State-Boise State (535,000 viewers), Colorado State-Oregon State (568,000) and Oregon State-Boise State (1.7 million).
We then focused on a slightly different calculation: viewer hours. It’s a standard industry data point that tracks what’s known as cumulative consumption — or total impressions, as some describe it.
Essentially, viewer hours differentiate between one game that draws 10 million viewers and five games that each draw 2 million viewers. Although total eyeballs are identical, the latter scenario would presumably allow advertisers to reach a wider audience.
It’s easy to calculate: Multiply the average viewers by the number of games, then multiply by 3.5 hours (standard broadcast time).
Total viewer hours for the eight games that paired new Pac-12 teams: 17,528,000.
Total viewers for the three games that paired new Mountain West teams: 619,500.
Admittedly, this data point reflects our sample size issue — specifically, not having access to the CBS Sports Network viewership numbers. To provide a better comparison, we re-ran the numbers assuming the same number of new vs. new games for each conference.
Adding five games to the Mountain West’s total, with an average of 59,000 viewers, led to a total of 1,652,000 viewer hours — still only a fraction of the new Pac-12’s total.
Our final data dive focused on the role the departing Mountain West schools played in the conference’s total viewership.
We looked at games matching teams that will remain in the conference in 2026 (Nevada vs. San Jose State) and compared that to viewership for games in which at least one team is jumping into the Pac-12 (Fresno State vs. New Mexico).
The three Mountain West games with both teams scheduled to remain in the conference averaged 59,000 viewers, as noted above. Meanwhile, the nine Mountain West games in which at least one school is departing for the Pac-12 averaged 328,000 viewers — a five-fold difference.
Now, a few words on the (somewhat subjective) matter of market size.
The Hotline did not give the new Mountain West credit for the Chicago or Bay Area markets. You cannot convince us that San Jose State and Northern Illinois resonate deeply enough in either metropolitan area to materially impact valuations.
We did give, however, give Fresno State credit for the Sacramento market based on anecdotal evidence that the Bulldogs are relevant throughout the Central Valley.
Lastly, we attempted to be reasonable with Washington State and gave the Cougars credit for half of the Seattle market. Instead of 2.1 million homes, we placed 1.05 million in the Pac-12’s allotment.
All in all, media markets with the new Mountain West schools cover 3.1 million homes, while markets with the new Pac-12 schools cover 9.2 million homes. The new Mountain West has two top-50 markets; the new Pac-12 has six.
(Caveat: The figures are based on Nielsen market data from 2021, and there assuredly has been some change.)
The Hotline won’t begin to assign a dollar figure to the media markets — that’s far beyond our scope. However, we can offer a morsel of insight into what the conferences can expect based on the viewership data provided above.
According to a report by News 3 in Las Vegas, which obtained the new Mountain West’s grant-of-rights, commissioner Gloria Nevarez has pledged to “use best efforts” to maintain the current media rights distribution of $3.5 million per school per year.
Admittedly, the Hotline is skeptical that amount can be secured for the new combination of schools without leaning into other funding sources. But for the purposes of this exercise, let’s use $3.5 million as the per-school payout figure.
With that as the baseline, what should the new Pac-12 expect given the massive disparity in 2024 audiences? Remember, the eight games involving teams that will be part of the new Pac-12 averaged 626,000 viewers, while the three games involving teams in the new Mountain West averaged 59,000.
A conservative estimate suggests the Pac-12 should command at least three times the Mountain West’s average annual value, thus creating a target figure in the $9 million-to-$10 million range.
Depending on the number of bidders and the manner in which the Pac-12 packages its inventory, the total could climb a tick above $10 million per school. Maybe it dips slightly below $9 million.
Or perhaps the new Mountain West only receives $2.5 million per school, meaning a 3x valuation results in the new Pac-12 collecting $7.5 million.
However it unfolds, the stark contrast in viewership indicates the rebuilt conferences are on different tiers in the media rights valuation game. The details should become clear sometime this spring.
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