The next Pac-12 media rights deal already sounds better than its last

Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould offered a rosy outlook Thursday when speaking with the Sports Media Podcast about the future of the conference's broadcast rights.

"We've been out in the marketplace for about six weeks," Gould told co-hosts Austin Karp and Mollie Callihane. "The response we've gotten from potential strategic media-rights partners has been overwhelming. ... It just reinforces what I knew when I took this job, which is people really care about the Pac-12 brand. It really means something in the marketplace."

Gould wouldn't have gone on the show with bad news, or begging for more bidders. Still, any iota of good news is welcome for a conference that saw its roster of football schools dwindle from 12 to two (Oregon State and Washington State) in September.

Utah State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State will join a seven-team Pac-12 on July 1, 2026. Gonzaga, which does not field a football team, is also joining the conference. The best selling points of the next media-rights deal involve the Zags' basketball prowess, and the Boise State football legacy.

"The media rights partner interest has been really, really extraordinary," Gould said. "They're pleased with the strength of the conference top to bottom, competitively they're pleased with the relevance of the brands that we have. The interest has just been incredible."

What will those media rights look like? About the only certainty is that the new playbook will not follow the old playbook orchestrated by Larry Scott, whose disastrous tenure as Pac-12 commissioner ended in 2021. Under Scott, the conference's eponymous network was practically invisible to fans, taking the schools in the opposite direction of every other Power 5 conference over the last decade.

That ultimately torpedoed member schools' ability to recruit athletes, raise funds from donors, and grow fan bases. The Pac-12 schools that bolted for other conferences included six original Pac-8 members, plus both Arizona programs.

It's perhaps interesting, then, to hear the brand still has caché. Unless you're in Corvallis, Ore., or Pullman, Wash., the Pac-12 is all but completely divorced from its tradition. The next media-rights partnership doesn't have to be bound to the Pac-12 legacy, only its name.

"We're really looking for what I call a transformational partnership," Gould said. "I don't want this media-rights partnership to be transactional. I want a transformational partner or partners that will jump in with us and help reimagine the rebuild the new Pac-12."

Gould noted that a mixture of linear and streaming platforms will achieve her goals of bringing in different audiences of different demographics: "that's the way we're thinking about it and approaching in the marketplace."

Gould was named commissioner on Feb. 19 and officially began her tenure on March 1.

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