Fox Sports Net and the Big 12 Conference extended their
current TV relationship, giving FSN national cable rights to
Big 12 football, as well as a variety of other sports,
through 2007. The new package includes 10 football cable
telecasts and as many as 12 regionally syndicated games for
broadcast TV each year. Other featured sports include
women's basketball, women's volleyball, women's gymnastics,
wrestling, baseball and track and field (FSN). In Ft.
Worth, Wendell Barnhouse puts FSN's five-year deal signed in
'96 at $42.5M, and the seven extended years at $129.2M,
making the deal worth $156.2M over the next ten years.
Combined with its ABC deal, the Big 12 will earn "roughly"
$32M a year in TV rights fees. TWI's Barry Frank, the
conference's TV negotiator, "said that puts it on a par"
with the Big 10 and SEC (FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, 8/28).
Fox/Liberty Exec VP Bob Thompson called the Big 12
Conference "extremely important to us" (K.C. STAR, 8/28).
ALPHABET SOUP: Frank added that the Big 12 "has broken
off negotiations with ABC to extend their contract." ABC's
$100M deal with the Big 12 runs through 2003. Frank: "We
couldn't reach a satisfactory decision on how to go forward
so we abandoned those discussions" (K.C. STAR, 8/28).
