Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print edition.
The Pac-12, which centralized the digital rights for all 12 schools in 2012, has signed Sidearm Sports to be its digital partner.
Sidearm, a Learfield company, will provide the platform and technical support for 11 of the 12 schools’ official websites, beginning in July. The lone exception, Southern California, will come on board in 2017.
The conference had worked with NeuLion but began the search for a new technology partner last year.
The new three-year agreement with Sidearm will be structured differently. NeuLion in the past sold part of the advertising inventory across the conference and school websites, but Sidearm will not be doing any selling as part of this deal.
All of the digital sales will flow through the conference office in San Francisco, which also sells advertising across its seven TV networks, its mobile product, Pac-12 Now, and Pac-12 corporate sponsorships.
Sidearm, instead, will be a vendor that works off a flat fee. The deal calls for Sidearm to sign just one contract that gives it the rights to all 12 schools because of the Pac-12’s centralized structure.
“We’re in a unique spot to be able to do this,” said David Aufhauser, the Pac-12’s vice president and general manager for digital.
Also unique to the deal is an all-inclusive component that gives the Pac-12 schools access to all of Sidearm’s bells and whistles. Most Sidearm school deals provide a basic service and then the company upsells other features, such as the infographics on social media and other products that cost extra.
But Sidearm wrote its contract with the Pac-12 to provide all of its products and services as part of the package.
“I think there’s a great opportunity when you have a conference come together to share data, stories, videos and photos,” said Sidearm President and CEO Jeff Rubin. “It’s all possible with the network effect.”
The Pac-12 is putting particular emphasis on Sidearm supporting a video-sharing platform that will make it easier for the schools and conference to share content.
“We want to be able to put the power of all 13 entities together into one,” Aufhauser said.
The Pac-12 also has a shared scheduling platform that each school can use for games and results across all sports.
“There’s quite a lot of work that goes into getting the architecture set up correctly for sharing data, specifically the scheduling data,” Rubin said.
Despite the centralized nature of the digital rights, each school’s website will maintain its own unique look. There will not be a template for each site to work from.
Sidearm has hired Ed Spiker, a former NeuLion and CBS Interactive executive, to be the project manager for the Pac-12. He is based in San Diego.
