The collegiate athletic conference operating in the Western United States, Pac-12, is losing viewership from its network. On Nov. 27, 2018, AT&T U-verse, one of the nation’s highest ranked television providers announced that it would stop carrying the Pac-12 Network effective immediately.
Just like that, the Pac-12 Network was taken off the TV from about 500,000 homes nationwide. Pac-12 lost around five million dollars from its annual income in response.
The Pac-12 Network is expected to experience a six percent drop in year-over-year revenue in 2019, according to The Mercury News. The decline in revenue will amount to an approximate loss of $8.1 million.
Other television networks such as Xfinity Comcast, Charter Spectrum, Cox and Dish Network continue to have the athletic conference included in their listings.
But these network providers aren’t anywhere close to receiving the same high volume of viewers as AT&T U-verse. Not to mention the growing trend of households around the country dropping standard cable television for streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
Nick Mantas, a former Pac-12 Network employee, predict that the athletic conference would lose viewership because of the company’s inability to ever make a deal with Directv.
From 2015 to 2017, Directv partnered with AT&T and the company wanted all Pac-12 schools to be under AT&T internet before they included the athletic conference in their listings.
Pac-12 Network denied this offer and put up with not being listed on one of the highest rated television networks.
“A lot of teams haven’t been as successful as they’ve been in the past,” Mantas says in regards to the sports teams Pac-12 broadcasts.
Also, people on the East Coast do not want to watch a game starting at 10pm, Mantas said.
“Pac-12 has had the most championships in the history of D1 college athletic sports but their lack of sports teams’ success and lack of ability to watch it are some of the main reasons for Pac-12’s downfall.”