Warriors won’t cash in on MWC TV deal

University of Hawaii football stands to gain visibility, but likely little cash from a new TV agreement announced Wednesday between ESPN Inc. and the Mountain West Conference.

ESPN said it has an "agreement in principle" to televise an assortment of MWC football and basketball games from 2013-14 through the 2019-20 season.

The network said it will acquire "exclusive worldwide rights" to televise up to 16 Mountain West football games plus every Boise State home game and up to 31 conference-controlled men’s basketball games annually.

Terms of the agreement were not announced but the conference is expected to receive about $18 million in combined revenue from its ESPN and CBS deals.

UH officials have said that under terms of their membership agreement with the conference, the Warriors will not share in revenues until the football shares of the other 11 members each exceed $2.3 million, the worth of UH’s local TV and pay-per-view package, annually. The other members are expected to average about $1.5 million each annually, depending upon bonuses, from the combined deals with ESPN and CBS.

UH also will not receive the $300,000 bonus for conference-controlled games that air on designated national networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and ESPN2) or the $200,000 bonus for Saturday games on those outlets, UH officials have said.

As part of the deal, the networks said ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC will televise a minimum of three Boise State football home games nationally. It said the Broncos’ remaining home contests will either be made available on either ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN3 or ABC. Up to 16 conference-controlled football games per season will be available on either ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ABC or ESPN3.

Last season ESPN televised four MWC football games, including UH’s game at Air Force, through a sublicense agreement.