Canzano: Did lawmaker break Pac-12 media rights news... or nah?
Pac-12 Commissioner says that's the wrong question.
Senator Maria Cantwell was addressing Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould during Wednesday’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing when she dropped a newsy little nugget.
“Ms. Gould,” the senator said, “you’ve been very polite about this. I mean, the bottom line is WSU had a $35 million hole blown in their $85 million college budget.”
Cantwell went on to say, “WSU, instead of having a $35 million media budget, has a, I think, $10 or $12 million media budget, so are we just going to let this continue to be this arms race?”
I missed the question.
I was distracted by the dollar figures Cantwell was throwing around. She was seemingly lifting the curtain back on the new-world Pac-12’s media-rights distribution.
I got on the phone with Gould on Thursday to dig deeper. Was the senator really breaking news on the media deal with The CW, CBS, and USA Sports? Did she misspeak? Or open the books in a way nobody in the conference has yet been willing to do?
My inquiry with Gould sparked a larger 1-on-1 philosophical discussion about the Pac-12’s new media rights deal, Pac-12 Enterprises, and the importance of overall conference distributions.