WSU football to be on CBS, CW this fall

2025 football media deal is a win for WSU

After much waiting and anticipation, we finally have some news on a TV deal with the Pac-12 … just not news of the TV deal we all have been hoping for.

The Pac-(1)2 finally announced the broadcast agreement for its 2025 home football games today – and it looks pretty darn good for WSU, all of whose games will have 100% reach to households via over the air broadcasters. Five games will be on the CW, and one – the Apple Cup – will be on CBS, which also will carry WSU’s first game against Oregon State on Nov. 1 in Corvallis. Both of the CBS games will kick off in prime time at either 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m.

(Besides the CW and CBS, OSU also will have a pair of games broadcast on ESPN.)

With that, the game times for the home games also are all now set (with the minor exception of the 30 minutes of wiggle room for the games on CBS), much to the happiness of folks with lives who would like to plan a weekend around a game:

Given the challenges faced by WSU in simply putting together a 12-game schedule in the absence of a partnership with the Mountain West, it’s hard to view this as anything less than a massive win, even if we don’t yet know the financial terms of the deal. Games against Idaho, Toledo, San Diego State, and Louisiana Tech that very likely would have been hidden away on the Pac-12 Network in the past are now available for everyone in the country to watch – and we saw from last year’s CW viewership numbers that simply being on an OTA channel is a massive boon for exposure for WSU and OSU. People did, in fact, tune in – even to some of the lesser games.

And then there’s the two games on CBS – yes, Big CBS and not CBS Sports Network – which will be the first time that’s happened in a season since … who knows when? The Pac-10/12’s only connection with CBS over the years has been with the Sun Bowl broadcast, so appearances on Big CBS have been limited to that or games at SEC opponents.¹ The late September Apple Cup will go head-to-head in prime time with whatever ABC/ESPN’s SEC game of the week is (probably Auburn-Oklahoma?). That’s exciting.

One other big win for WSU: Half of the games will kick off between noon and 5 p.m., and of the three late-night games, two are in the first two weeks of the season when the weather should still be pretty glorious, even after 7 p.m.²

Of course, this is just step one for the conference in terms of media agreements, but it was a necessary one before moving on to the biggie for 2026 and beyond. Precious little real news has come out about progress on those negotiations beyond half-baked speculation and tea leaf reading, but I think it’s pretty safe to infer that whatever is coming down the pike likely will include these same partners. Spending a bunch of time negotiating with these folks for a one-year deal while having a bunch of different negotiations with Fox or a streamer just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Interestingly, the partnership with these three broadcasters indicates that the conference is prioritizing visibility – presumably in the name of future growth – rather than chasing potential marginal dollars via streaming platforms.

The Pac-12 isn’t on an island on this: You might recall that the last mega media deal, signed by the Big Ten, featured big broadcasters in predictable time slots, a throwback to an era when there were only but so many options for broadcast windows. The one league that has taken the leap to an almost 100% digital experience – MLS, which has a stand-alone subscription streaming package via Apple TV – hasn’t exactly been thrilled with its low viewership numbers in the early years of the deal, as far fewer fans have taken the plunge with the service than they anticipated.

Perhaps the streaming revolution we’ve all been anticipating hasn’t yet arrived.

NFL Draft reflections

I thought about turning this part into a full newsletter, but I think I’ll just tack it on here.

With Miami (via WSU) quarterback Cam Ward going No. 1 overall in the NFL Draft and wide receiver Kyle Williams subsequently being selected in the top 70 picks last weekend, I can’t help but think (again) about what a disappointment Jake Dickert’s tenure was, given the talent he was working with.

We all know that the schedule WSU played last season was not up to the level it was in the past in our Pac-12 days, but something I noticed today while browsing College Football Reference kinda shocked me: WSU’s strength of schedule was its worst since 1945 and third worst ever. To only win eight games against that schedule – and need fourth quarter comebacks against a trio of bad MWC teams to even do that – wasn’t exactly a failure (that’s a strong word), but it certainly was something significantly less than what it should have been.

And that really tells the story of Dickert’s tenure. His teams featured future NFL players Ward, Williams, Daiyan Henley, Chau Smith-Wade, Jaden Hicks, Cam Lampkin, Brennan Jackson, and Jarrett Kingston, as well as starters who would end up as Power 4 transfers such as John Mateer, Wayshawn Parker, David Gusta, Buddah Al-Uqdah, Ethan O’Connor, Josh Kelly, De’Zhaun Stribling, Travion Brown, Francisco Mauigoa, etc. Some of those guys are going to end up in the NFL, too.

Good on him and his staff for being able to identify and develop talent. But that’s just the first part of the job, and to only go 20-17 as a full-time head coach with those players just reinforces my belief that Dickert did us a favor by leaving when he did, saving us from himself.

1  Someone on our members-only Slack board said they went back as far as 1990 and couldn’t find a CBS appearance. My recollection of playing at Auburn in 2012 was that it was on ESPN.

2  We won’t talk too much about that Louisiana Tech game in November. Yuck.