The Big East is reportedly closing in on media rights deals with new partners NBC Sports and TNT Sports, along with an extension with current partner Fox Sports.
Per The Athletic, the new deals are expected to add a litany of men’s and women’s games to streaming services Peacock and Max in addition to linear networks. CBS Sports, the Big East’s other media partner, is still holding talks with the conference about a package of games.
Neither the length nor the value of the deals is currently known. The Big East and Fox are coming to the end of a 12-year $500 million contract signed back in 2013 when the Big East and American Athletic Conference split.
Fox is expected to retain much of the Big East tournament, including the title game, in this round of media rights deals.
Back in March, reports indicated that the conference was “making a lot of progress” in agreeing to new deals with Fox and CBS but was also “holding out one more package for a third media partner.” While Fox remaining in frame isn’t much of a surprise (especially given comments from Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman last year), the entrance of both NBC and TNT is, especially at the possible expense of CBS. However, the CBS deal consists of games sublicensed from Fox, and while the structure of this deal remains to be seen, it does seem plausible the company could end up with a similar deal as a fourth partner.
The future is less certain for the Big East’s non-basketball sports. The conference has a deal with FloSports that runs through next season. That deal also included women’s basketball.
With TNT on the verge of losing the NBA, adding some Big East games will at least fill some of those lost programming hours while also helping bolster Max. For NBC, the acquisition of Big East games pairs nicely with its inventory of Big Ten games and its possible addition of the NBA.
