WAC rewarded with big ESPN contract

When schools like Boise State and Hawaii bust into the BCS party, people take notice. When Fresno State wins the NCAA baseball championship, people take notice.

And when people take notice, television giants like ESPN want to get in on the action.

Wednesday, ESPN and the Western Athletic Conference announced an extension of their current television contract. The new deal will not only last through the 2016-17 school year, but will significantly increase the exposure the league receives as well as increase the money spends for the rights to WAC games.

"This truly shows that the WAC has reestablished itself as one of the premier conferences in the country," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said.

Financial details of the new contract were not disclosed, but Benson said the contract's dollars are "significant and a substantial increase."

Perhaps more importantly than the extra funds each school will receive is the extra national exposure that will come from the contract.

Each school is guaranteed that at least one football and one men's basketball game will be broadcast, and each men's basketball team is assured a slot in the ESPN BracketBuster weekend.

"The WAC's success has been well documented," ESPN's Burke Magnus said. "We recognized the need to reward them."

Magnus and Benson have been hammering out details of a contract extension for more than a year and finally got to the point where both parties felt comfortable in signing the dotted line. And though some details are still being worked out — such as a specific night and time slot for games — both parties said the new agreement was "mutually beneficial."

"College sports, for our company, is part of our DNA," Magnus said.

He added that ESPN is in a position of requiring certain things from its broadcast partners and one of the unofficial rules is that schools and conferences must "play their way on" to the network.

"It's very gratifying when we have the opportunity to reward somebody for doing just that," he said.

The previous contract was set to expire after next year and did not include newer ESPN properties such as ESPNU and ESPN 360. The new contract will expand the WAC's broadcast to those outlets as well as give the conference a foot in the door for ABC broadcasts if compelling games arise.

"The next seven or eight years are going to be tremendous for the WAC," Benson said.