Ranking the Pac-12’s current TV markets

College football conferences make most of its income through TV contracts, which is why the likes of Fox and ESPN became the game’s puppet masters (h/t Jon Wilner).

Thanks to former commissioner Larry Scott, the Pac-12 is currently reeling from a poor TV contract he helped negotiate. Other Power 5 conferences — primarily the Big Ten and SEC — are enjoying significantly better deals, ultimately helping push USC and UCLA to the aforementioned Big Ten. Now with George Kilavkoff leading the Pac-12, a new, desperation-fueled round of media rights negotiations are underway.

Kilavkoff still has a few of the country’s biggest markets at his disposal, but losing Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest TV market, is a gut-punch.

Columnist John Canzano recently used data from Nielsen to analyze the Pac-12’s markets. Below is how the conference’s nine current major markets (San Diego and Sacramento were included) rank:

Salt Lake City – 1,100,260 households

Rob Gray-USA TODAY Sports

San Diego — 1.132.300 households (to be removed in 2024 with USC and UCLA's exit)

(AP Photo/Orlando Ramirez)

Portland — 1,143,670 households

(Photo by Tom Hauck/Getty Images)

Sacramento — 1,459.260 households

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Denver — 1,798,440 households

Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Seattle — 2,098,800 households

Stephen Brashear-USA TODAY Sports

Phoenix — 2,158,240 households

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

San Francisco — 2,653,270 households

(Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports)

Los Angeles — 5,735,230 households (to be removed in 2024 with USC and UCLA's exit)

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

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