By: Liz Farmer

So maybe the ACC didn’t top the 15-year, roughly $3 billion SEC television rights deal of a couple years ago. But as I said in today’s story, both nearly double the member schools’ television revenue. The deal cable sports network ESPN and the ACC struck last week is worth about $1.86 billion over 12 years and as media consultant Steve Dresner put it, “It’s now time to play ‘who’s going to top this?’ ”

Conference television deals used to hover around the eight-year mark, but Dresner points out the trend is turning toward longer and for more money per year. He predicts that the major conferences (like the Pac-10 or Big 10) will now settle for no less than a billion-dollar deal.

Let’s take a look:

• The Pac-10′s current deal expires in 2012 and is roughly worth an average of $53 million per year to the conference. The conference recently expanded to 12 teams (after trying for 16). But it also has to deal with the fact that its most popular football team, the University of Southern California, is facing severe NCAA sanctions. However, according to the Sports Business Journal, networks are still stumbling over each other to make a bid.
• The Big Ten’s deal expires in 2016 and is valued at an average of $100 million per year to the conference. The deal also created the Big Ten Network, which News Corp. projects could pay $2.8 billion to the conference over the 25-year life of the deal.

Considering the ACC and SEC deals doubled conference television revenue, both conferences stand to score monster deals for double-digit years this decade. But at what point does the madness stop? I’m not saying these conferences aren’t worth $200 million per year — if the ad revenue is there (and so far it is), then by all means sign on the dotted line.

But given the recent rash of schools switching conferences, including now-fizzled rumors about the University of Maryland going to the Big Ten, it seems these contract lengths are a bit audacious.

As Randy Eaton, Maryland’s interim athletic director, said to me last week, “If two or three schools left the ACC and the conference added five more, we’re all back at the table. Either way it’s the conference wanting to renegotiate or television wanting to renegotiate.”