The West Coast Conference (WCC), an NCAA collegiate athletics conference consisting of eight member schools, has announced a multi-year broadcast extension with television network EPSN.
The new eight-year television deal sees ESPN providing comprehensive national exposure for the member college's men's basketball programmes, covering a minimum of 48 game per season across the networks range of television channels, including ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. The previous agreement between the two organisation's saw 38 games broadcast annually.
The new contract takes effect from the start of the 2011/12 season and runs through until the end of the 2018/19 season. It is believed to be the most expansive deal ever signed by ESPN with a non-football playing conference.
Additionally ESPN will cover five WCC events per year across the sports of women's basketball, soccer, volleyball and baseball.
“We are elated to reaffirm our long term partnership with ESPN for another eight years,” said West Coast Conference commissioner, Jamie Zaninovich. “ESPN has played a critical role in helping build and extend our brand as a premier national basketball conference, and this agreement will ensure that more West Coast Conference events will be telecast across more national television platforms than ever before.”
Burke Magnus, ESPN senior vice president, college sports programming, added, “We are thrilled to continue our exclusive long-term relationship with the West Coast Conference and its member institutions. The WCC is a premier conference, recently made even better by the addition of Brigham Young University. This agreement allows us to showcase more WCC content than ever before to fans through all our networks and platforms, and via any available technology or device.”
Financial details of the new eight-year extension were not released.
WCC – ESPN [22228] ESPN – espn
