The Big 12 on TNT.
Get used to it.
As part of a settlement struck between the NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery, the Big 12 will see 13 of its football games per year moved from ESPN’s streaming platform to linear television on WBD channels TNT and TBS. ESPN is also sublicensing 15 Big 12 men’s basketball games to be aired on either TNT or TBS.
The sublicensing deal begins next academic year (fall 2025) and spans six seasons, running concurrent to the Big 12’s new television contract with partners ESPN and FOX, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told Yahoo Sports.
The Big 12 is a secondary part of a grander deal involving the NBA, WBD and ESPN. The agreement settles litigation brought by WBD over the NBA’s decision to grant its future rights package to ESPN, Amazon and NBC. In what’s described as a network “trade,” TNT’s hit show featuring Charles Barkley, “Inside the NBA,” will air on ESPN starting next NBA season.
WBD, meanwhile, receives the 28 Big 12 football and basketball games to fill windows previously occupied by NBA matchups. Weekly kickoff times are still unclear, but 10 of the 13 games will be Big 12 conference matchups. The Big 12 games will be simulcast on the streaming service MAX, formerly HBO Max, a proprietary unit of WBD.
Perhaps overshadowed in the NBA’s announcement, the Big 12 piece is a significant boon for the conference. The deal shifts football games scheduled to air on ESPN+ streaming to more visible linear channels, gives the league a fourth network partner and positions the conference well in its next television contract negotiations, Yormark said.
ESPN and FOX remain the Big 12’s “flagship partners,” he notes, and the networks will continue to air their committed number of football and basketball games. No content will be reduced on ESPN and FOX linear platforms. The league’s fourth partner, CBS Sports, will air 26 men’s basketball games annually in an expansion of a previous deal, the conference announced in September.
“This is additive to what ESPN and FOX bring us. That’s why this is a great deal,” Yormark told Yahoo Sports. “Any addition to both is complementary and will lead to more promotion and marketing around the Big 12 and conference brands.”
During an interesting time in the college sports media rights space, the Big 12 remains the only power conference to partner with both sports media giants ESPN and FOX. FOX has a long-running and lucrative agreement with the Big Ten as its primary partner. It has sublicensed games to NBC and CBS. The SEC and ACC are solely with FOX rival ESPN. Both leagues broadcast on their own ESPN-owned networks.
The Big 12-WBD sublicensing agreement further fills linear windows at a time when two conferences, the Pac-12 and Mountain West, are soon entering the market to negotiate new packages. Two years ago, the Big 12 went to market early, leaping in front of the Pac-12 to sign a new deal with ESPN and FOX that experts contend put the Pac-12 on a path to implosion. The league failed to acquire a suitable TV contract for its group of restless members, triggering a fallout that left it with just two schools: Washington State and Oregon State.
The Big 12 is competing in its first football season with former Pac-12 members Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State. Deion Sanders and the 8-2 Buffaloes are on a path to the Big 12 football championship game — a potential ratings bonanza for the league. FOX’s pregame show, “Big Noon Kickoff,” has originated from the site of four Big 12 games this year — three of them involving Sanders’ Colorado team.
The new sublicensing deal sets the stage for the league’s impending negotiations for its next television deal. Yormark is contemplating bifurcating the deal by selling the football and men’s basketball portions separately. Most conference television contracts are sold as a single package. However, the Big 12’s basketball success has the commissioner considering a bifurcation.