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The Big East Conference has inked a new package of six-year media rights deals, re-upping with lead partner Fox Sports while bringing on NBC Sports and TNT Sports in secondary roles. With one year left on the legacy contracts with Fox and CBS Sports, the new deal will tip off with the 2025-26 academic year and run through 2031-32.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Upon the conclusion of the current 12-year deal, the Big East will have collected $500 million in rights fees, pulling in just shy of $41.7 million per year. Estimates of the value of the new agreements see the conference nearly doubling its annual rights payments at a range of $75 million to $80 million per year.
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In maintaining its status as top banana, Fox will carry at least 80 men’s and women’s basketball games per season, while holding onto the rights to televise the final of the storied men’s Big East Tournament. The annual showdown at Madison Square Garden has been a fixture of the spring sports scene since 1980, when the conference was dominated by the likes of Syracuse, Georgetown, Villanova and St. John’s.
After a series of defections and realignments, the Big East now is largely a collection of Catholic schools, with nine of the 11 members sharing that designation. Last year’s championship game between UConn and Marquette averaged a post-reformation high of 1.68 million viewers on Fox; by way of comparison, the final Big East tourney final on ESPN between Louisville and Syracuse averaged 3.42 million back in March 2013.
If the TV ratings haven’t quite caught up to the numbers generated under the old guard, the competition within the lines remains elite. The Big East has claimed four of the last eight NCAA men’s hoops titles, with UConn putting up back-to-back wins in 2023 and 2024 after Villanova brought home the hardware in 2016 and 2018.
While CBS has long served as a Big East media partner, it has not renewed its deal with the conference. Instead, NBC sibling…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/big-east-renews-fox-lines-151115128.html
Author : Sportico
Publish date : 2024-06-27 15:11:15
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