Pac-12 schools are facing a $50 million fiasco after Comcast overpaid the athletic conference’s regional sports network. The company realized it was overcharged for licensing fees from 2012 through 2016.
Some of the reasons for this financial error resulted from Pac-12 moving its headquarters out of San Francisco, which is over-budget already.
Washing State University has paused all non-essential business purchases and travels as well as placed a temporary hiring freeze on its athletic department. This is partly due to internal accounting errors causing the department to spend too much and lose money overall this year.
“As has already been widely reported, each Pac-12 university will see a significant decrease in revenue distribution. The decrease is a result of overpayments from one of the conference media partners that must be resolved,” said Washington State University President Kirk Schulz.
Comcast decided it will not be paying additional licensing fees to Pac-12 until the end of the summer of next year. Each school in the Pac-12 will lose out on $4 million during this time frame.
Sources report Chief Founding Officer Brent Willman and Networks President Mark Shuken have been fired. They, in turn, filed a lawsuit against the Pac-12 conference “alleging that they informed former Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott about the Comcast overpayment in a timely manner but were ordered to keep quiet about it.”
A number of sports leagues have been renegotiating their contracts or looking at other options in recent months. More are looking to secure media rights deals with streaming networks in addition or instead of traditional linear broadcast television.
Pac-12 is having more than its fair share of struggles while newing its media rights deals. The conference also must handle losing USC and UCLA to the Big Ten next year.
Check back with Cord Cutters News as more information about Pac-12 and Comcast works out how to handle this and future dealings.