Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Big 12 finalizes television deal with Fox Sports and ESPN

Bob Bowlsby Big 12

The Big 12 has finalized a television rights agreement with ESPN and Fox Sports on a 13-year deal that is reportedly worth close to $2.6 billion annually and extends through the end of the 2024-25 season.

“The stability of the Big 12 Conference is cemented,” commissioner Bob Bowlsby said in a statement. “We are positioned with one of the best media rights arrangements in collegiate sports, providing the Conference and its members unprecedented revenue growth, and sports programming over two networks.”

The agreement is more like an extension, building on a deal that would have run through the 2015-16 season and extending it for nearly another decade.

On the basketball side of the agreement, ESPN will retain the primary rights to the Big 12, including the Big 12 tournament.

“The Big 12 will generate per member television revenue at the highest level of college athletics, while increasing exposure for our programs, and continuing to provide for comprehensive institutional rights,” Oklahoma State president and Big 12 Conference board of directors chairman Burns Hargis said.

The meat of the deal, though, is football, and the Big 12 now has 25 guaranteed national games per season, spread across ABC, ESPN, FOX, and FX.

“The Conference is excited to build upon its long-standing relationships with both ESPN and FOX,” Hargis added. “I would also like to acknowledge the Board’s executive committee for its fine work during this process.”

Daniel Martin is a writer and editor at JohnnyJungle.com, covering St. John’s. You can find him on Twitter:@DanielJMartin_