Kelly Lyell
Commissioner Craig Thompson opened last month’s Mountain West football media summit in Las Vegas by listing the conference's focal points for the coming season. He started by talking about sportsmanship before moving to improving basketball scheduling and then spoke about the importance of branding.
“Probably the biggest one, maybe I should have started with this one,” Thompson said, “is our media rights.”
The explosion of money in college athletics has been a result of skyrocketing television rights deals, which also has been the biggest driving force in the separation between the Power 5 conferences, which make up to $40 million annually per school on its TV deal, and conferences like the MW, which hands out about $1 million annually per school.