Final look at Pac-12 new rights deal and look ahead to this season

* A few final notes on the Pac-12 rights agreements struck by ESPN and FOX.

• ESPN will pay a slightly higher rights fee due to taking on more men's basketball, women's basketball and some Olympic sports content that FOX has had rights to.
• ESPN and FOX teamed up in the spirit of possibly keeping a 3rd competitor out of the marketplace
• After looking over these two agreements, it feels as though ESPN now has the agreement that FSN currently has today, with the exception of a few less baskebtall games and a couple of football games for ABC, and that FOX (with F/X in football and FSN in basketball) has the old ABC deal, with a few more basketball games than what ESPN and CBS sublicense from FSN today.

* Big East is up next, but not for a couple years.  ESPN is looking to extend the existing agreements (football is a separate contract from all other sports) which have a few years left on them.  If they can keep the Big East from getting into open bidding, they could shut Comcast out until the Big Ten comes up for a new deal.

* Pac-12 early selections from ABC and ESPN were supposed to come out at the beginning of this week.  Didn't come out yesterday so who knows when.  With C-USA having to delay where their TV games are airing, plus no announcement about any Big Ten night games, its been a very quiet spring. 

Here's what I'm thinking (all times Eastern):

Already selected
Friday 9/9 Missouri at Arizona St. 10:30pm ESPN
Saturday 9/24 Oregon at Arizona 10:30pm ESPN/ESPN2
Thursday 10/6 California at Oregon 9pm ESPN
Thursday 10/13 USC at California 9pm ESPN
Thursday 10/20 UCLA at Arizona 9pm ESPN
Friday 11/4 USC at Colorado 9pm ESPN2

Expecting to be selected (all Saturday games)
9/10 Utah at USC 3:30pm ABC
9/17 Texas at UCLA 10:30pm ESPN/ESPN2
10/1 12-day 3:30pm ABC
10/1 12-day 8pm ABC
10/15 12-day 10:30pm ESPN/ESPN2
10/22 12-day 3:30pm ABC
10/29 Stanford at USC 8pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2
11/5 12-day 10:30pm ESPN/ESPN2
11/12 12-day 3:30pm ABC
11/12 Oregon at Stanford 8pm ABC
11/19 Cal at Stanford 3:30pm ABC
11/19 USC at Oregon 8pm ABC
11/28 12-day 3:30pm ABC
11/28 Notre Dame at Stanford 8pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2

Note that the Oregon vs. LSU game at Cowboys Stadium does not count towards anyone's television contract.  ESPN contracts with the event, who selects the participating teams.

Last year, ESPN selected 15 of their 20 games early.  Due to a stacked schedule with the increase in conference size and one less week to spread things out over because of the championship game, I see a few more doubleheaders on ABC and selecting 13 of their 20 games in advance.