Yellow Pages > News & Articles > Business News

ESPN Matches NBC's TV Deal to Carry Big East Basketball

Joseph Byrne Friday, February 22, 2013

If you enjoy watching Big East college basketball then you are going to be very happy to hear about the new TV deal that sports entertainment network, ESPN, has just scored. The sports network giant is announcing that they have just matched NBC's offer to buy the television rights to the Big East college basketball season for a cost of $20 million over six years.

The Big East was working on a deal with NBC that would have put most of its football and men’s basketball games on NBC Sports Network. The deal also gave NBC the right to sublicense games, allowing them to be aired by other networks.

ESPN had the right to match the deal by Thursday. Sports Business Journal and ESPN.com, citing unidentified sources, reported ESPN had matched but details were still being worked out.

As the primary rights holder for the Big East since 1979, ESPN had the first option of retaining the conference's media rights. However, ESPN and the Big East did not reach a deal last October during the network's 60-day exclusivity window, allowing the Big East to negotiate with other networks.

Last week, NBC Sports Network offered the Big East the seven-year deal. ESPN then decided to match it and keep the Big East's media rights despite the league's recent mass exodus of teams.

The Big East's new media rights deal is actually worth less per school than its current ESPN deal and six times less than what ESPN presented two years ago.

For those on Long Island who enjoy watching Big East basketball it would be great to see ESPN continue to hold their rights.

joeb@longislandyellowpages.com

Appears In: Business News

Joseph Byrne

Recent Columns | E-Mail

Joseph Byrne is a writer for the Long Island Yellow Pages Business News section. If you have a press release that you'd like to share please send it to joeb@longislandyellowpages.com

Also Read: