Pac-12 TV partners will decide who airs UH vs. USC

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Who will use their first-round draft pick on the University of Hawaii?

Pac-12 Conference spokesman Dave Hirsch said the league’s broadcast partners, ESPN and Fox, as well as the debuting in-house Pac-12 Network, will conduct a "draft-pick-like scenario" to determine which one airs the Sept. 1 Warriors game at Southern California and other opening-week Pac-12 home games.

Because it is a USC home game, the contest is part of the league’s inventory for which partners will pay a record $3 billion over 12 years. Hirsch said the Pac-12 Network will have the second pick. The first choice would "go to either ESPN or Fox. At this point the selection order hasn’t been determined yet," Hirsch said. "We’re looking to do that probably in the first couple weeks of June."

Hirsch said all of the conference’s home games will be shown on one of the three partners.

The San Jose Mercury-News said it expects the UH-USC game to "be first off the board."

But where the UH game ends up is important to UH due to its pay-per-view contract with Oceanic Time Warner Cable. Because debuting head coach Norm Chow once coached at USC, which is expected to be highly ranked, it would be the most attractive PPV offering, provided Oceanic is able to secure it.

If ESPN takes the game, it would likely be available here as part of the basic cable package, not PPV exclusive.

But if Fox or the Pac-12 Network takes it, Oceanic would have to strike a deal in order to include it on any planned PPV package. In previous years Oceanic has been able to secure the local rights to Pac-12-owned UH games at Oregon State and Washington and make them exclusive to PPV.

For UH to receive its guaranteed $2.3 million rights fee from Oceanic, the cable provider must have access to at least seven of the Warriors’ 12 games. So far UH says it has been guaranteed to retain the rights to at least three games: Lamar, South Alabama and New Mexico.

Already ESPN has secured two, the Sept. 28 contest at Brigham Young, and the Nov. 16 game at Air Force. NBC Sports Network has the Sept. 22 UH-Nevada and Nov. 10 UH-Boise State games, while CBS Sports Network has the Oct. 6 UH game at San Diego State.