The Big East Conference has signed a new bundle of six-year press rights agreements, which include bringing on NBC Sports and TNT Sports in extra responsibilities while re-upping with head companion Fox Sports. The new agreement will end with the 2025-26 academic year and work through 2031-32 with one time left on the tradition deals with Fox and CBS Sports.
Economic conditions were never disclosed. Upon the conclusion of the latest 12- time deal, the Big East may have collected$ 500 million in right costs, pulling in really shy of$ 41.7 million per year. According to estimates of the value of the new agreements, the conference’s annual rights payments range from$ 75 million to$ 80 million.
In maintaining its position as best fruit, Fox will carry at least 80 people’s and women’s hockey game per year, while holding onto the rights to televise the last of the storied men’s Big East Tournament. The flower sports field has been a fixture since 1980, when the meeting was dominated by the likes of Syracuse, Georgetown, Villanova, and St. John’s.

After a series of rebellions and realignments, the Big East nowadays is mostly a collection of Catholic institutions, with nine of the 11 people sharing that title. In contrast, the last Big East tournament final on ESPN between Louisville and Syracuse averaged 3.42 million people back in March 2013 for the championship game between UConn and Marquette, which was held last year.
If the TV ratings have n’t quite matched the numbers produced by the old guard, the line-up continues to be fierce. After Villanova won the title in 2016 and 2018, the Big East has won four of its last eight NCAA men’s hoops titles, with UConn posting back-to-back victories in 2023 and 2024.
While CBS has long served as a Big East media partner, it has not renewed its deal with the conference. Instead, NBC sibling Peacock will get a head start on covering the league’s men’s hoops this coming season with a selection of 25 regular- season games and five tourney outings, before assuming a more expansive slate of 60- plus games ( men’s and women’s ) in 2025- 26.
TNT Sports will carry roughly 65 regular-season games once the new deal is signed, for its part. The NBA’s long-time partner’s flurry of maneuvers, including a 10-year,$ 65 million deal to carry the French Open and a pact with ESPN to sublicense a number of College Football Playoff games, follows TNT’s investment in the Big East.
As interest-seeking offers from NBC Sports and Amazon have not yet been purged, the NBA’s fate on TNT will remain to be seen.
Our new agreement will boost the conference’s revenue and stability over the long term, bring in more student athletes, and keep us competitive in our beloved sport, basketball, according to Rev. Daniel S. Hendrickson, president of Creighton University and chair of the Big East Conference board of directors, in a joint statement issued Thursday morning.

Overall, the new package will make sure that roughly 150 regular-season men’s games are broadcast across the partners ‘ various media platforms, and that women’s basketball’s coverage will effectively triple to about 65 games per year.
The Big East is navigating the NCAA’s proposal to enlist non-Power Five schools to help defray the$ 2.77 billion in back damages owed to former college athletes under the House, Hubbard, and Carter antitrust rulings as the coverage expands and additional revenue is generated. The Big East will be held accountable for up to$ 70 million in restitution payments over the next ten years under the formula developed by the NCAA board of governors, which is an overreaction given that only one of its member schools, UConn, has an FBS football program.
Val Ackerman, the Big East commissioner, has criticized the idea of carrying such a financial burden because the assessed liabilities are disproportionately high. Before the end of the calendar year, a final decision regarding the settlement fees is anticipated to be made.
Throughout the negotiations over the new rights package, Proskauer Rose and Allen & Company provided advice to the Big East.