NBC Sports and the Big 12 announced a multi-year deal Tuesday that will bring 20 men’s basketball games each season exclusively to Peacock starting in 2025. The agreement marks a significant step for both parties, and yet another piece of a growing puzzle that’s quickly making the Big 12 the most widely distributed conference in college basketball.
This new package, brokered through a sublicensing deal with Fox Sports, according to the Sports Business Journal’s Ben Portnoy, adds NBC Sports to a crowded Big 12 media landscape that already includes ESPN, CBS, and TNT. The end result? More than 60 men’s basketball games next season will air outside of the league’s primary rights partners, and Big 12 hoops will now be seen on as many as eight different platforms: ESPN, ABC, Fox, FS1, CBS, CBSSN, TNT, and Peacock.
Commissioner Brett Yormark has made it no secret that he sees long-term media value in men’s basketball, and this latest deal backs up that belief.
“The Big 12 is thrilled to partner with NBC Sports and Peacock as we continue to expand access and coverage of Big 12 men’s basketball,” Yormark said in a release. “Alongside our portfolio of existing media partners, NBC Sports and Peacock will provide our league with unprecedented promotion and storytelling.”
The 20-game Peacock slate will feature a mix of conference and non-conference matchups and will be part of a broader push by NBCUniversal to bolster its live sports offerings. Peacock will stream nearly 200 men’s and women’s college basketball games next season across the Big 12, Big Ten, and Big East, and that’s with even more content on deck thanks to the NBA (beginning 2025-26) and WNBA (2026).
NBC Sports President Rick Cordella called the Big 12 “one of the most successful conferences in college basketball,” adding that NBC is excited to showcase its teams and rivalries in front of a growing streaming audience.
That audience is substantial. Peacock has already streamed some of the biggest live events in recent sports history — from Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking game to the first streaming-exclusive NFL playoff broadcast. The platform boasts nearly 100 million monthly active users, according to comScore, and is preparing for another price increase this fall, coinciding with the launch of its new NBA package.
The Big 12, meanwhile, has the résumé to back up its media blitz. The league sent seven teams to the 2025 NCAA Tournament — including eventual national runner-up Houston — and placed four programs (Houston, Arizona, Texas Tech, BYU) in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2002. It marked the fifth time in seven years that a Big 12 team reached the Final Four and continued a run that’s included two national titles in the past five tournaments.
The NBC deal follows a similar 2024 agreement with CBS Sports, giving the Big 12 additional men’s basketball exposure each year and setting the stage for its broader media rights strategy. That current deal with ESPN and Fox runs through 2031, but as more networks get a taste of Big 12 content, the conference is betting they’ll want more.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.