ESPN Reaches Eight-Year Agreement with West Coast Conference

ESPN and the West Coast Conference (WCC) have announced an eight-year rights agreement extension for enhanced coverage of men’s and women’s basketball and Olympic sports content across multiple platforms.

As a result of the new deal that runs through the 2018-19 academic year, ESPN will receive rights to distribute West Coast Conference men’s and women’s basketball, including action from the conference Championships, and Olympic sports on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3.com and ESPN Mobile TV.

“We are thrilled to continue our exclusive long-term relationship with the West Coast Conference and its member institutions,” says Burke Magnus, ESPN senior vice president, college sports programming. “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.”

As part of the deal, the West Coast Conference will receive a minimum of 48 men’s basketball appearances, including conference games and home non-conference games on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. ESPN has televised an average of 38 West Coast Conference men’s basketball appearances over the past three seasons. Details include a minimum of 14 conference men’s basketball games with seven on ESPN or ESPN2 and seven on ESPNU; more coverage of the West Coast Conference Men’s Basketball Championship with telecasts of the championship on ESPN or ESPN2, semifinals on ESPN2 and two quarterfinal games on ESPNU; and at least five events annually across women’s basketball, soccer, volleyball and baseball on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.

“We are elated to reaffirm our long term partnership with ESPN for another eight years,” says WCC 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.”