For as long as the reformed Big East has existed, I’ve been worried that FOX would come to regret it’s splashy purchase of the league’s TV rights in 2013.
“After taking some time to digest the numbers, my first reaction was: “HOW IN THE WORLD DID THE BIG EAST GET FOX TO PONY UP $500 MILLION?” Pardon my Jae Crowder speak, but the caps were both warranted and necessary. There is absolutely no way you can spin the ratings to legitimize the contract from FOX’s end other than it was desperate for content. It bought a 2009 Chevy Impala for the price of a 2014 Lamborghini Murcielago. Think I’m being dramatic? Keep reading.”
That started a decade+ long infatuation with the Big East’s TV ratings, not because I wanted to be proved right or anything, but because I have been so scared that FOX would realize it made a huge mistake and would pull the plug on what ends up being 60% of the conference’s revenue each season.
Commissioner Val Ackerman noted last media days that renegotiations had begun with the broadcaster, but with every day that passed, conference that got realigned and TV deal that got announced without any sort of news or update, that pit in my stomach kept gnawing at the lingering insecurity.
Boy was I wrong!
New Deal
As announced by the league, those fears have proven to not just be unfounded, but wildly incorrect. FOX will remain the primary stakeholder, while NBC and TNT come along as new partners for the Big East’s TV rights until 2031. And Puck’s John Ourand has now provided clarity on the dollar figure, noting that the contract is worth around $80 million, a 95% increase from the previous contract’s $41 million or so average annual value.
For those that don’t speak jargon, AAV simply divides the full amount by the years to give you a nice flat number, when in realty, the sums vary greatly, starting below the average and finishing above it. So the Big East’s last 12-year contract only payed out $30M or so in year 1, while surpassing $50M in 2023.
And don’t let all that number talk cover up how monumental this is for the conference. Despite seeing lift in the top-end games this season, the Big East’s ratings on FOX and FS1 have generally been significantly below not only the ESPN numbers, but even the Big Ten’s own ratings on FOX and FS1. There are multiple reasons for that, and I have spent years explaining it, but at the end of the day, ratings proved to not be the anchor weighing down the conference I once feared.
(The incredibly insightful Sports Media Watch has a great article focused on the NBA’s ballooning rights despite less than stellar ratings that has plenty of applicability to the Big East. Highly recommended reading.)
In any case, the numbers landed almost exactly where we had pegged them to land back in 2022, which is a round about way of saying, even though I have no formal experience or training, this guesswork we’ve been doing is not just message board wishcasting.
At the end of the day, I do think the Big East stays with FOX and ends up at the lower end of the projections above, something like $75M to $80M a year for 7 years. This would still close to double TV rights revenue on a yearly basis and bring a bit of stability to the individual school’s bottom lines.
We won’t know for a year or two how accurate this is, but feel free to bookmark it and shove it in my face one day.
Using the 3.6% YoY increases we’ve become accustomed to seeing in the 990 tax filings, that would mean the conference would get around $73 million a year in year 1, and ending up at $87 million in 2031. Charting that progress from the conference’s reformation, you can see that it’s a very significant jump.
And again this all matters because this media deal was the only way the conference, and thus the schools, would see any sort of revenue bump. NCAA Tournament shares are not only flat, they also will be penalized going forward thanks to the NCAA settlement, costing the Big East millions a year to back pay NIL to P5 football players. (I’m not joking, read this.)
And in this ever splintering sports landscape, it also allows the conference to stay connected to one of the big 2 conferences, as both the Big East and Big 10 will now share homes at FOX/FS1 and NBC/Peacock. A good chunk of the most watched games last season on FS1 rode the Big 10 game coattails, as fans who may have tuned in to their game stayed for another. Having that synergy across two platforms is incredibly beneficial for the league and future TV negotiations.
What does this mean for me?
Get ready to learn Peacock. And now.
While this new contract won’t kick in until the 2026 season next year, NBC announced that its streaming arm, Peacock, would broadcast 25 regular season games and 5 Big East Tournament games starting this upcoming season.
It is the first time any portion of the Big East’s schedule will be exclusively on a streaming platform, so will require an additional purchase in order to ensure all games can be seen. That number doubles to 60 men’s and women’s games in 2026, so will be even more of a prerequisite at that point.
I know there is plenty of hesitancy to moving away from linear, but that ship has sailed. It will take a bit of getting used to, no doubt, but if the best leagues in the world (NFL, NBA, EPL, B10) are increasing their presence, it’s not a niche anymore. Just a fact of life.
And this is where we will have to pour one out to the past 11 years. The amount of Big East content made available to a national audience on FS1 and FOX is something no league will ever see again. That led to some low ratings at times, sure, but it made the league so easy to access with just basic cable.
I know I’m missing some, but here is a rough sketch of what the men’s basketball broadcast map looked like in 2024. Over 120 Big East contests on FS1, and it was like this for 11 full years.
Here’s what I think is a reasonable projection for this upcoming season, as CBS and CBS Sports drops out of the picture and Peacock takes over that content load, plus a bit more for the Big East Tournament.
And once the contract kicks in, here’s what I think the breakout will look like.
Obviously it’s not going to shake out like this every year, but in general it gives you a good idea of what changes are coming. It’s not as fan friendly or wide reaching, sure, but it will broaden the conference’s reach into new spheres and ensure a cable + Peacock subscription is all that’s necessary to have complete access. (TNT Sports did note that all their broadcast would be available on MAX as well.)
If you like corporate speak, here are all the press releases in one spot.
Football drives the bus. That was true yesterday, today, and every day to come for the foreseeable future. This doesn’t change that even one iota.
But just like the 2013 reformation proved that there was broadcast interest in a pure basketball league, this 6-year deal shows that though not in the same galaxy as what football is worth, basketball has real, tangible value to media companies.
Reading Ourand’s breakdown of how the deal came about, there was intense interest from multiple partners, and CBS only dropped out when the bidding got too high. For a group that has no football to speak of!
FOX is happy with their baby. NBC continues to make Peacock a need for sports fans. TNT desperately tries to plug the holes from losing the NBA.
The Big East is a special case, no doubt. The A10 only got around $6 million a year (as a league) for TV rights in 2022, and only was able to increase those rights by 40% when it extended its contract primarily with ESPN in December. Which means each Big East school will basically be worth the entirety of the A10 from a media perspective.
The AAC, with its football component, is only getting $83M a year from ESPN through 2032, and that was with Houston and Cincy in the fold. On a per team basis, the Big East will be making more money just for basketball, than the 5th or 6th best FBS conference.
This shows that there still is significant value for high end basketball. You can be damn sure Brett Yormark and the Big 12 will look at this contract and continue their scheming about splitting their rights between football and basketball the next go around.
So is everything seashells and balloons?
Lol, of course not.
Remember how back in 2011 the legend that the end of the Aztec calendar ending in 2012 meant the world was going to end then? Well that’ legend/myth/doomsday scenario is much realer for the sport and the magic number is 2032.
That’s the year the NCAA Tournament TV deal with Turner/CBS mercifully ends and lots of media deals will be up just before then, including this one. There’s still an eternity before then, of course, but I do think it’s worth mentioning that if there ever were to be a breakaway from the B10/SEC into some super league, it most likely takes place around then.
Of course we are well past 2012 and still alive and kicking, so don’t take that as a projection from me that we are seeing the end of the college basketball world, but just know that as with all things college basketball, joy and relief are temporary at best.
There’s also the fact that despite doubling the value of the contract, the Big East’s coffers are still significantly below what the P4 will pull in as a whole. Yes, it’s not fair to lump in football revenues without accounting for football expenses, but as a general fact, schools don’t have to adhere to an 80/20 split on the revenue they get, so a rising football tide can and does lift basketball’s boat.
And if we’re being honest, in raw numbers, the bump up each school will get from this new deal will only amount to about $2M more a year than they got in 2023. So even though it doubles the value of the last contract, it isn’t doubling the current outlays.
All Big East teams will still be rowing upstream to try and keep up with the P4, and will require significant investment from both the university and big money donors. This doesn’t change that at all, other than provide a bigger buffer for the lean years.
It’s still a BFD
But don’t let my pessimist self put a downer on this. What Val and crew have done is a BFD. Just a decade ago, there were more than a handful of pundits and fanbases, and 1 particular TV channel, burying the conference as dead, relegating it to minor player status. What this contract does is ensure that the Big East is a prime time player through the end of the decade at least.
FOX’ head of insights and analytics put it best on Thursday.
The @BIGEAST took a leap of faith with @FS1 when the future prospects for both were uncertain
Since then the conference has won four men's nattys and just had its most-watched regular season and tourney ever on Fox networks
The Big East will continue to be broadcast nationally, has 3 of the 5 biggest sports distributors as committed allies, and further cemented its status as a power in the basketball sphere.
It’s a very good day to be a fan of college basketball.
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