Sky, the UK pay-TV giant, has agreed a deal with major US sports broadcaster ESPN to show NCAA basketball and American football through the 2024-25 season.
Through the agreement, the broadcaster will show three NCAA college football games per week throughout the regular season, from August to December.
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Coverage on Sky Sports began on Saturday (November 18) with the Louisville Cardinals’ 38-31 win over the Miami Hurricanes.
Sky Sports will have access to all matches from the Bowl Season running from December to January.
The pay-TV heavyweight will also carry the dedicated college football show, College Game Day Live.
The coverage will be added to Sky’s dedicated Sky Sports NFL channel, with new live content.
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By GlobalDataIn addition, Sky Sports will show up to three NCAA basketball games per week through the regular season from November to March.
The broadcaster will have rights to all matches from the end-of-season March Madness playoff, as well, finishing with the NCAA championship game on April 8.
Sky previously held long-standing UK rights to basketball's NBA but was replaced by rival TNT Sports last month (October).
ESPN, meanwhile, recently agreed a similar distribution deal for NCAA content with United Media, the Southeast Europe-based media company, to show games in the Balkans.
Meanwhile, US national network NBC and the University of Notre Dame have renewed their long-term football broadcast rights agreement through the 2029 season.
The agreement extends the partnership to nearly four decades (39 seasons). NBC has aired Notre Dame's home football games since 1991.
Their current agreement, which pays Notre Dame about $22 million per year, was due to expire after the 2024 season.
NBC Sports retains global media rights on all platforms to all Notre Dame home football games. It also allows for select games to stream exclusively on the Peacock platform, which has been the exclusive home of one Notre Dame Football game each season since 2021.
Peacock will also be the exclusive home of a new, annual documentary series on Notre Dame Football, debuting in 2024.
Jack Swarbrick, University of Notre Dame vice president and director of athletics, said: “We are thrilled to continue our historic collaboration with our partners at NBC Sports. In the next generation of this partnership, we will collaborate to provide our fans even more Notre Dame content through a variety of NBCUniversal’s distribution channels while continuing to put our student-athletes and their stories at the heart of our messaging.”
Rick Cordella, NBC Sports president, added: “There is no better tradition than Notre Dame Football in South Bend, and we are thrilled to keep that tradition within the NBC Sports family as we extend our relationship as the exclusive home of Fighting Irish home games through the end of the decade.
“With enhanced rights that allow us to present Notre Dame Football on NBC as well as across Peacock and additional platforms, we look forward to bringing the Fighting Irish to fans in more ways than ever before.”
The new agreement also extends to other events on the Notre Dame Football calendar, including the annual Blue-Gold Game and Notre Dame’s Pro Day.
Peacock also is streaming the entire Notre Dame hockey schedule in 2023-24.
It was announced earlier this year that Pete Bevacqua will step down as chairman of NBC Sports to take up a role as athletics director at Notre Dame.
Bevacqua, a Notre Dame alumnus, will replace the long-serving Swarbrick when he departs in 2024.
Cordella replaced Bevacqua as NBC Sports president in September.
