Larry Scott and the Pac-12’s woes are not limited to what’s happening between the lines.
According to internal figures obtained by the Bay Area News Group’s Jon Wilner, the oft-criticized Pac-12 Networks is in more dire financial straits than most realized:Internal budget projections for the Pac-12 Networks obtained by the Hotline show a 6% ($8.1 million) year-over-year decline in total revenue, a 22% drop in net advertising revenue and a 30% plunge in digital revenue. Net affiliate revenue, the largest bucket, by far, was expected to drop by 5%.
Perhaps most significantly, the Pac-12 Networks aren’t expected to increase the amount they distribute to the campuses: The $33.475 million projected for the schools in the current fiscal year — split 12 ways, that’s $2.8 million per campus — was the same amount pegged for FY18.
Not great, to say the least. The Networks are also expected to take in $127.4 million in revenue and turn a slight profit that will be distributed back to member schools but the figures lag significantly behind their Power Five peers.
Thanks in part to their own conference network, the SEC announced it had distributed roughly $43.1 million per school (including money from bowls and other items) while the Big Ten is expected to hand out nearly $51 million to its schools. Even the Big 12 and ACC are in-line for big increases in media rights money, with the former just recently signing an expanded deal with ESPN and the latter launching its own network in August.
There’s been increased talk of the Pac-12 cashing in down the road since they own the rights to every single event in their media umbrella (and possibly even selling a chunk of the league’s future rights) but, for now, the programs out West are having to deal with a case of a budget shortfall on their conference network side.
