Fox Sports Inks Four-Year Extension To Broadcast Cotton Bowl

Fox Sports "plans to remain in the college football business, signing a four-year extension to keep the Cotton Bowl on its schedule through 2014," according to John Ourand in this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. Fox Sports officials "would not say how much they paid for the extension." Fox, which has held the Cotton Bowl's TV rights since '99, "plans to move the game to a prime-time window by 2011." The '11 game currently is the "only one that Fox is committed to move to prime time, though it's likely that the three games after that will also be in prime time." Fox' deal "comes just nine months after the network lost the rights" to the BCS to ESPN. The extension with the Cotton Bowl also comes as the media rights for "three major conferences, the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-10, are expiring, suggesting that Fox could be an interested bidder." The deal "covers both domestic and international rights and also includes a wide swath of digital rights." Streaming and int'l plans are "still being developed" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 8/31 issue).

SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST: In San Antonio, Zwerneman & Briggs reported the Valero Alamo Bowl Friday announced a four-year deal with the Pac-10 in which the conference beginning in '10 will send its "second overall selection ... to San Antonio to face a Big 12 team." Bowl officials are "in discussion with the Big 12 about corralling the league's second selection after the BCS, or third overall pick." Big 12 Assistant Commissioner for Communications Bob Burda Friday said it is a "moving target" as to when the league will announce which Big 12 slot "will wind up in San Antonio starting in 2010." The Pac-10 alliance "means the Alamo Bowl is severing its long-time ties with the Big Ten," which will send a team to San Antonio for the 15th consecutive time this season (SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS, 8/29). ESPN.com's Tim Griffin wrote the four-year deal will pay the Pac-10 team around $3M annually to "move from its current agreement with the Holiday Bowl in San Diego" (ESPN.com, 8/28).