Mountain West to end ties with ESPN

Advertiser Staff

The Mountain West Conference stunningly announced yesterday that it will break ties with ESPN and award its television rights to upstart challenger College Sports Television (CSTV) beginning in the fall of 2006.

The agreement will pay the MWC $82 million over seven years for its TV, radio, satellite radio, voice-on-demand and Internet rights, the MWC said. ESPN, which had an option to match the deal, declined.

The MWC is in the penultimate year of a seven-year $48 million agreement with ESPN. The ESPN deal had originally been negotiated with the old 16-team Western Athletic Conference but was taken off the table and awarded to the MWC at the time of the 1998 breakup.

This summer the WAC signed a six-year deal reportedly worth $8 million with ESPN after reportedly turning down an offer from CSTV.

University of Hawai'i-Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert, who cast the school's vote on the television deal, was not immediately available for comment.

The CSTV offer to the WAC was reportedly for five years and about three times what ESPN offered although most of the money was apparently back-loaded and WAC members were said to be concerned about CSTV's viability and its market penetration.

The year-old New York-based CSTV is a 24-hour sports network that airs primarily non-revenue sports such as soccer, lacrosse, baseball and volleyball, in addition to limited basketball and football. It is currently unavailable in several major MWC cities, including Denver, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas except through DirectTV's supplemental subscription sports package.

WAC commissioner Karl Benson said he hoped the MWC's departure from the ESPN lineup would present additional exposure opportunities for the WAC in the West.