The Pac 12 roadshow continued on the East coast today as the coaches took turns visiting New York and Bristol on a divisional basis to kick off the start of football season ESPN style.
Commissioner Larry Scott announced the formation of what will be called the Pac 12 Networks. It consists of one national channel and six regional ones (Washington, Oregon, N. California, S. California, Arizona, Mountain). This takes it a full step beyond what any of the other conferences (single channel) are doing.
This makes it pretty easy to add another channel to the lineup via conference expansion. So in other words yes...there would be eventual room for a Longhorn Channel if the conference decided to go to 16 teams in the future.
Scott called it "a truly unique, one-of-a-kind initiative to create exposure that's unprecedented." The Big Ten showed the value of a conference network when it launched one in 2007, but this is the first to combine national and regional channels.
The Pac-12 partnered with cable companies Comcast, Cox, Time Warner and Bright House to distribute the networks but wholly owns them.
Once the channels launch in August 2012, they will broadcast about 850 sporting events a year -- 350 nationally and 500 regionally. Subscribers will also be able to watch games on mobile devices.