Big East signs new basketball TV deals with Fox, NBC, and TNT

It often feels like the Big East is on the outside looking in with all the big moves going on in college sports these days. But when it comes to the conference’s flagship basketball games, they’re going to be front and center for a long time to come.

The Big East announced new broadcast deals on Thursday with Fox, NBC, and TNT that will encompass approximately 205 combined games beginning in the 2025-26 season.

“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,” Creighton president and Big East board of directors chair Rev. Daniel Hendrickson said in a statement. “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.”

Financial terms of the new deals aren’t known yet.

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Fox is about to start the last season of its current deal, which launched in 2013 and has been worth $500 million over the length of it. In the new deal, Fox will have 80 combined men’s and women’s games across its various channels, the big Fox network and cable channels FS1 and FS2.

The broadcast channel will remain the home of the men’s conference tournament championship game, and the Big East’s announcement said Fox has committed to tripling the amount of women’s games it shows.

“Everyone at Fox Sports is thrilled to continue our long-standing relationship with the Big East, one of the nation’s top basketball conferences and a pillar of our college hoops lineup,” Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks said in a statement.

NBC will start one part of its deal this coming season. The network will put 25 regular-season games and five early-round conference tournament games on Peacock, its subscription streaming platform that has the Big Ten, the Olympics, English Premier League soccer, among others.

Next year, the full deal will kick in: over 60 games across men’s and women’s basketball, including conference tournament games. That will include 15 women’s regular-season games and some tournament games.

“Big East basketball is among the most prestigious in all of college sports, and we’re proud to be able to feature the men’s and women’s teams across our NBCUniversal platforms,” said NBC Sports president Rick Cordella.

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TNT’s deal will start in 2025-26. There will be at least 50 men’s games, with minimums of 30 conference games and 20 nonconference games, and at least 15 women’s games.

Games will be televised mainly on TNT, with some also on TBS and truTV — which puts the Big East on the same channels as the NCAA men’s tournament.

All games also will be available on the Max subscription streaming platform, owned by TNT’s corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery. They’ll presumably also be on the new Venu Sports streaming platform that Fox, TNT, and ESPN are planning to launch this fall.

“This agreement further adds to TNT Sports’ portfolio of premium live sports content, featuring championship-caliber college basketball programs and student athletes, and we will utilize all of our assets to elevate the fan experience,” said TNT Sports chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser.

There could still be two more puzzle pieces for the Big East to fill in. CBS might get a small package of basketball games, as it has had for decades, since some still are available; and there’s no word yet what the conference will do about the women’s games that have been on the FloSports streaming platform.

That deal has been widely unpopular with fans because it costs $30 a month or $150 a year, a much higher price than other streaming platforms.

A source with knowledge of both matters told The Inquirer that neither has been settled yet.

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