The Pac-12 has moved one step closer to completing its rebuild, announcing Monday that CBS will be the primary TV partner for its new media rights deal.
The news comes as the conference looks to finish its full TV deal and add an eighth football-playing member to reach NCAA requirements by next season. The full TV deal is not yet complete, with at least two more media partners expected to fill out the plan.
CBS will be the anchor partner of a five-year deal from 2026 to 2031. The main CBS network will broadcast at least three regular-season Pac-12 football games and the conference championship game, along with at least three men’s basketball games and the conference tournament championship game. Those will all be streamed on Paramount Plus, and the football championship game is expected to return to its Friday night slot. Financial details were not disclosed.
The conference will also have a regular-season presence on CBS Sports Network. Full details aren’t yet available because the Pac-12 is still talking with other companies about the rights to games. This CBS deal is technically an extension, as CBS will air two games this coming fall for Oregon State and Washington State as part of an agreement that also includes ESPN and The CW.
The new Pac-12 is set to include current members Oregon State and Washington State, along with new members Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State and Gonzaga (non-football).
With the TV deal nearing completion, the Pac-12 has been in conversation with schools for that eighth football-playing spot. Texas State from the Sun Belt has been the favorite, according to people briefed on the process, but nothing has been finalized. The plan had been to finish the TV deal before expansion, but we’re getting close to July 1, which is a key date in college sports because exit fee buyouts to leave a conference in less than a year will increase. For Texas State, that Sun Belt exit fee would jump from $5 million to $10 million.
While American Athletic Conference schools like Memphis, Tulane and UTSA have been in the conversation, the exorbitant exit fee cost and valuable ESPN TV deal have kept them with the American. SMU paid an exit fee of more than $25 million to leave the AAC for the ACC on less than one year’s notice, and any of those schools would likely have to pay something similar.
The eight schools onboard so far have signed a grant of rights, which goes through June 2031, according to membership terms made last year and obtained by The Athletic. Those terms indicate media rights will be shared equally across all full members. That is notable amid speculation around the idea Texas State could be brought in at less than a full share. Schools will also keep 50 percent of any earned NCAA basketball tournament units for themselves and share the remaining 50 percent equally.
The College Football Playoff will remove its participation bonus in 2026, but Pac-12 membership terms state Oregon State and Washington State will keep all revenue associated with a three-year CFP agreement from 2026 to ’28, along with all NCAA units earned before this year, per the document. OSU and WSU also control Pac-12 cash reserves stemming from the separation agreement with the 10 departed members, including the ability to distribute it to themselves.
How the Pac-12 got here
The “Conference of Champions” appeared set to disappear after more than a century of history when the Pac-12 collapsed in its former form, with 10 of 12 schools announcing their departures for the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC. But Oregon State and Washington State, the two remaining schools, said they would first try to rebuild the conference. The pair made a football scheduling agreement with the Mountain West for the 2024 season, but when the sides couldn’t come to terms on a 2025 schedule, the Pac-12 went on the offensive.
Four Mountain West schools announced last September they would jump to the Pac-12 with OSU and WSU, shedding the MWC schools they felt didn’t invest as much. The group turned to schools in the AAC like Memphis, Tulane, South Florida and UTSA, hoping to create a top conference outside the Power 4. But questions and concerns about the Pac-12’s financial projections, along with the cost of leaving the AAC and that ESPN TV deal, led those schools to stay put. The Pac-12 turned back to Mountain West options and convinced Utah State to join, but UNLV and Air Force stayed put, thanks to tens of millions in financial guarantees from the Mountain West for staying.
The Pac-12 added basketball powerhouse and non-football school Gonzaga, but it has remained one football school short of the eight members required by July 2026. The league put expansion on pause and focused on securing its media rights deal, getting concrete numbers to take back to prospective members. The Pac-12 says its members last year would’ve been a top-five league in the men’s basketball average NET rating, but football drives the majority of the TV value.
In April, the two current Pac-12 members announced their 2025 TV deal with ESPN, CBS and The CW, indicating a larger deal for the new conference would be finished soon. But it’s now late June and it still hasn’t been finished.
What’s next?
Though Texas State is considered the favorite to fill that last Pac-12 spot, it’s not a done deal.
Some officials in the Pac-12 have wanted to get into Texas, and Texas State would fill that void. The Bobcats are coming off their two best football seasons as an FBS program and have won three of the past four Vic Bubas Cups, signifying the top-performing Sun Belt school across all sports. It’s also one of the fastest-growing schools in Texas, with more than 40,000 students in San Marcos, located between Austin and San Antonio. Texas State also had discussions with the Mountain West last year.
Texas State wins the Sun Belt’s Vic Bubas Cup, which goes to the top athletic department in the league. Second straight and third in the last four years. pic.twitter.com/qbvuZGU2l3
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) June 5, 2025
While industry and Pac-12 sources have separately discussed the idea of adding Memphis as a football-only member if the Tigers could get the rest of their sports in the Big East, it wouldn’t fill the NCAA requirement and likely wouldn’t be immediate anyway. Memphis received around $11 million from the AAC last year, which the Pac-12 or a combination of leagues may not be able to offer.
Memphis athletic director Ed Scott also appeared to throw some cold water on the notion last week. He told local reporters he has not had any substantive conversations with the Big East, and that Memphis was more focused on going bigger.
“I know that (Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould is) worried about finding her eighth full member. I’m worried about trying to get us into a Power 4 conference,” Scott said. “That is our first goal, unequivocally. That’s always been our goal.”
Schools that withdraw from the Pac-12 before June 30, 2031, would owe damages to the conference, even if leaving for a Power 4 conference, according to the membership terms.
Whatever the Pac-12’s decision is, it could set off more conference realignment. The Sun Belt would likely move quickly and replace Texas State with Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky or Middle Tennessee from Conference USA, according to a person briefed on the Sun Belt’s thinking. CUSA is set to expand this year to 12 schools by adding Delaware and Missouri State from the Football Championship Subdivision. If the league did lose a school and try to backfill, it wouldn’t be able to add another FCS program until 2027 at the earliest because of the FCS-FBS transition process.
The Pac-12 could also try to add more affiliate members in sports like basketball or baseball. But that can’t come until the TV deal and football expansion are done.
July will mark four years since Texas and Oklahoma announced their move to the SEC. The trickle-down effect of that move is still ongoing. It nearly led to the end of the Pac-12 at the hands of the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC. But this long, winding round of conference realignment at the FBS level may finally come to an end relatively soon.
(Top photo: Loren Orr / Getty Images)
