Big XII, ESPN Nearing Monster New TV Agreement

The Sports Business Journal broke a story today that the Big XII and ESPN were close to finalizing a new television agreement that would net the conference $1.3 billion over the next 13 years. Combined with the Big XII's agreement with Fox ($1.2 billion over 13 years), the conference stands to earn $2.5 billion over the life of both agreements.

ESPN's old contract with the Big 12 ran through 2016, but the two sides are close on a nine-year extension that will increase the conference's average revenue from its current $150 million a year to nearly $200 million annually. Each Big 12 school will make roughly $5 million more a year in the new contract over the old deal.

Needless to say, that's a pretty ridiculous sum of money but as we're all aware this isn't just college sports any more. It's a business and clearly business is booming.

Despite the substantial increase for Big XII schools with the new deal, according to the article it's still not quite what the Pac 12 will be making with their new television deal.

Under the new terms, each Big 12 school will average just under $20 million a year. Schools in the Pac-12, which also partnered with ESPN and Fox to generate its record $3 billion deal over 12 years, will average nearly $21 million per school.

Hopefully we can get our resident expert on this type of thing, the all-knowing Redhawk, to chime in with his thoughts on the deal.