US collegiate sports’ Big East conference has finalized new six-year media rights agreements with national networks Fox, NBC, and TNT.
The college conference, which most prominently organizes Division 1 basketball, announced Fox Sports, its television partner for the last 11 years will continue as the conference’s lead network provider, with NBCUniversal-owned NBC Sports and TNT Sports also covering Big East basketball for the first time.
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The Big East will see a marked increase on the $41.6 million it has received annually from media giant Fox during its current deal, a 12-year $500 million contract inked in 2013.
The new agreement, which will run from the 2025-26 season through 2030-31, will include coverage on Fox Sports channels (FOX, FS1, FS2), NBC Sports platforms (NBC, Peacock) and Warner Bros. Discovery-owned TNT Sports (TNT, TBS, truTV and Max).
Coverage will consist of major national broadcast, cable, and direct-to-consumer streaming of Big East men’s and women’s basketball games and Olympic sport championship contests.
As part of the agreement, Fox Sports will feature a minimum of 80 Big East men’s and women’s basketball contests across the regular season and postseason starting in the 2025-26 season.
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By GlobalDataAdditionally, Fox will remain the broadcaster of the Big East Men’s Tournament Final through 2031.
The Peacock streaming service, meanwhile, will launch its coverage of Big East men’s basketball in the 2024-25 season with a package of 25 regular season games and five early round and quarter-final conference tournament games.
Then from the 2025-26 season, Peacock and NBC Sports will show over 60 men’s and women’s regular season and Big East Tournament games.
Elsewhere, TNT Sports will feature more than 65 regular season Big East basketball games on its primary channel as well as on TBS, truTV, and Max, starting from the 2025-26 season.
TNT’s interest in Big East basketball likely stems from the fact it is set to lose its rights to professional basketball’s NBA, while NBC is looking to bolster its basketball lineup as the broadcaster that is set to gain the NBA rights from TNT and is seeking to bring more viewers to its Peacock streaming service.
Creighton University president and Big East Conference board of directors chair Daniel Hendrickson said: “Our new agreement that provides coverage by Fox Sports, NBC Sports, and TNT Sports will allow the Big East to maintain our already high level of national broadcast and cable exposure while adding first-time streaming coverage for men’s basketball games and expanded distribution of games on the women’s basketball side.
“The arrangement will provide enhanced revenue and long-term stability for the conference, create benefits for our student-athletes, and allow us to remain nationally competitive in our marquee sport: basketball.”
The Big East was advised in negotiations by investment bank Allen & Company and law firm Proskauer.
The conference's previous agreement with Fox Sports is scheduled to expire after the 2024-25 academic year.
Meanwhile, Paramount Global-owned CBS will drop out of the Big East domestic broadcast mix having held rights to its competitions for over a decade through a series of sub-licensing deals, the most recent of which came in 2019 when it began a new sub-contract with Fox for 20 games per season ending in 2025.
Alongside fellow media giant Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp will jointly operate the upcoming Venu Sports streaming venture set to control over 50% of live sports broadcasts in the US.
The majority of the Big East's games each season are set to be covered by the streaming service.
