Pac-12’s Bold New Media Blitz: How CW, CBS, and ESPN Are Changing the 2025 Football Season Game Plan

Well, here’s a twist in the ever-evolving saga that is college football’s media landscape—come 2025, the Pac-12 will be streaming and broadcasting Oregon State’s and Washington State’s home turf battles through not just one or two usual suspects, but a trio: the CW, CBS, and ESPN. Yup, a fresh yet familiar cocktail of partners, with the CW doubling down after last year’s run, while CBS jumps back into the Pac-12 game for the first time in decades. It’s a strategic dance, no doubt, as the conference braces for a seismic shake-up in 2026, welcoming a handful of new Mountain West schools and Gonzaga (though the Bulldogs bring hoops, not pigskin). Behind the scenes, the Pac-12’s advisors at Octagon have been spinning wheels to lock in this patchwork deal, leaving the financial tallies under wraps—for now. This arrangement sets the stage for a new era of broadcast collaborations, with the added bonus of rare home-and-home matchups and a glimpse at the conference’s expanded footprint. As someone who’s watched sports media deals come and go, it’s fascinating to see the Pac-12 navigate its way back to prominence, pushing boundaries with broadcasters who’ve been modest players in college sports until now. It’s a curious mix of continuity and change, and frankly, I’m eager to see how it all plays out once kickoff arrives. LEARN MORE

The Pac-12 Conference has signed a media rights deal with the CW, CBS and ESPN to air Oregon State’s and Washington State’s home football games for the 2025 season. A renewal with the Nexstar-owned CW, along with new pacts with CBS and ESPN, were made in hopes of agreeing to larger deals in a year when the conference is set to undergo a massive expansion.
Pac-12 football, even with just two schools, averaged 431,000 viewers across 11 telecasts on the CW last fall, and it made for five of the network’s six most watched college football games. The broadcaster also holds rights to ACC football, but the Pac-12 games often outperformed the larger conference in viewership.

The two CW telecasts on Sept. 6 (Week 2) are previews of the new Pac-12 with Oregon State hosting Fresno State and San Diego State visiting Washington State. The current Pac-12 members will also face off in a rare conference home-and-home series, with both games being played in November.

Financial details were not disclosed, with the league citing ongoing negotiations for long-term broadcast partnerships. Octagon, which the Pac-12 hired in an advisory role back in November, helped negotiate the 2025 deals.

In the deal, the CW will broadcast nine games while CBS (along with streamer Paramount+) and ESPN will have two games apiece. The arrangement is similar to the 2024 deal—the Nexstar broadcaster had nine games while Fox had rights to the remaining four home contests.

In July 2026, Oregon State and Washington State will be joined by five schools that are currently part of the Mountain West Conference—Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Utah State—and a sixth in Gonzaga, the longtime power of the West Coast Conference. Since Gonzaga does not have football, the Pac-12 will need to at least one more full-time member with football to qualify for the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).

The CBS telecasts will mark the first time that the Tiffany network will have rights to any incarnation of the Pac-12 since holding rights to Pac-10 games in the 1980s.

The 2025 arrangement also marks the Pac-12’s return to ESPN after the mass exodus of ten schools before the 2024 football season. The relationship between the conference and network was previously severed when USC and UCLA announced their intentions to leave for the Big Ten in 2022. During the ongoing media rights talks that summer, ESPN offered million per school; the Pac-12 (then led by George Kliavkoff as commissioner) countered ESPN’s offer by asking for an additional million for each school, causing ESPN to walk away completely.

CW has been a modest player in sports media rights. The broadcaster is in the first year of a seven-year, 0 million pact with NASCAR’s Xfinity Series, the second highest level of stock-car racing in the U.S. The CW is also the exclusive home to WWE’s NXT, the wrestling promoter’s third brand outside of Raw and Smackdown, and newly launched track league Grand Slam Track, which hosted its first event earlier this month.