ESPN, the major US sports broadcaster, has agreed a new six-year streaming rights deal with US collegiate sports’ Big East Conference.
As part of the long-term agreement, a minimum of 75 women’s basketball and 200 Olympic sports events will stream on the ESPN+ service annually beginning in the 2025-26 academic season.
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This deal, which runs through the 2030-31 academic year, will also include a minimum of 25 non-conference games annually for Big East men’s basketball.
The Big East has 11 colleges and universities, including Connecticut, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, and Villanova.
Nick Dawson, ESPN senior vice president of programming and acquisitions, said: “We’re pleased to welcome the Big East back to ESPN. This agreement returns one of the country’s premier conferences to ESPN platforms and continues to strengthen the college offering on our direct-to-consumer streaming services.”
Big East commissioner Val Ackerman added: “This exciting relationship with ESPN reinforces our commitment to placing Big East teams front and center on the leading digital sports platform.
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By GlobalData“Streaming on ESPN+ gives all 22 of our sports — especially women’s basketball and Olympic sports — the visibility they’ve earned and the access our fans expect. We look forward to delivering elevated coverage and a streamlined viewing experience to fans and family members who want to follow Big East action across our wide array of sports offerings.”
ESPN and the Big East have a relationship that spans more than three decades.
The conference, which most prominently organizes Division 1 basketball, signed its first national television deal with ESPN in 1980, beginning a partnership that ran through 2013.
Last year, the Big East signed new six-year media rights agreements with national networks Fox, NBC, and TNT to provide linear coverage.
Fox Sports, the conference’s television partner for over a decade, will remain its lead network provider, with NBCUniversal-owned NBC Sports and TNT Sports covering Big East basketball for the first time.
Through those deals, the Big East will see a marked increase on the $41.6 million it had received annually from Fox during the previous deal, a 12-year $500 million contract inked in 2013 when it replaced ESPN.
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).
The deal with the Big East expands ESPN’s college sports offering, which includes the Atlantic Coast Conference, under a deal renewed earlier this year through the 2035-36 academic year.
ESPN’s biggest college sports deal is an eight-year, $920 million tie-up with the NCAA, the governing body of college athletics in the US, announced in January 2024.
The deal, which started with the 2024-25 academic year and runs through 2031-32, includes domestic rights to 40 championships – 21 women’s and 19 men’s events – and international rights to the same championships as well as the Division I men’s basketball tournament.
It encompasses several top college sports including American football, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, tennis, gymnastics, and volleyball.
However, the contract does not include several marquee games from American football and basketball, including the Division I men’s basketball’s ‘March Madness’ tournament, which is shown by Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery via national network CBS and the Turner cable networks.
