LINK: http://www.idahostatesman.com/sports/story/112121.html

WAC turns down ESPN's extension offer
Board of directors gambles that the league's value will continue to rise.

By Brian Murphy - bmurphy@idahostatesman.com
Edition Date: 07/20/07

The Western Athletic Conference, feeling good about itself in the wake of Boise State's Fiesta Bowl victory and a highly anticipated 2007 football season, is betting that its stock will only continue to rise.
Despite a contract extension offer from television giant ESPN this summer, the league did not agree to extend its deal, WAC commissioner Karl Benson said Thursday.

The WAC has three years remaining on the six-year, $6 million deal it signed with ESPN in 2004.

"The board of directors and the WAC athletic directors always have to evaluate what is best in the short term versus what is best in the long term," Benson said.

"We have confidence that we'll continue to grow the WAC, and its value in two years will be greater than it is today. ... The WAC has to make sure we get the best possible business deal we can."

The current contract represented a tripling of the WAC's previous deal with ESPN, but is far short of the seven-year, $48 million contract the Mountain West Conference signed with CSTV.

Benson said the inability to reach an agreement on an extension now does not mean that the league would be headed elsewhere after its contract expires.

"Right now, I don't sense that there is anyone else in the marketplace that we'd be interested in," Benson said.

The WAC has benefitted from the exposure provided by its deal with ESPN, which guarantees the league 46 nationally televised football games over six seasons. Eleven regular-season games involving WAC teams are scheduled for ESPN or ESPN2 this season, including five involving Boise State.

But in the past year there have been several points of contention between the league and ESPN:

• The lack of men's basketball games on the network. The network is required to show two men's games every year and the conference tournament championship game.

• The WAC's refusal to let ESPN show games on ESPNU without additional compensation.

• The WAC's refusal to change the date of last year's Boise State-Nevada game.

Benson said without a new agreement nothing will change regarding men's basketball and ESPNU.

Thanks to Boise State's increasing national profile and Hawaii's emergence as a possible Top 25 team with a Heisman contender in quarterback Colt Brennan, the WAC's visibility is as high as ever.

"It did stimulate ESPN to come back to the table with a better offer. … They did come to us with an extension offer that in their mind was a significant financial increase, looking at it as a reward," said Benson, who did not disclose details of the offer. "We couldn't come to terms with the financial piece."