The Big 12 on TNT.
Get used to it.
As part of a settlement between the NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery, will see the Big 12 move 13 of its football games per year from ESPN’s streaming platform to linear television on WBD channels TNT and TBS. ESPN also sublicenses 15 Big 12 men’s basketball games, which will air on TNT or TBS.
The sublicense agreement will begin next academic year (fall 2025) and cover six seasons, concurrent with 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 larger deal involving the NBA, WBD and ESPN. The agreement resolves a dispute brought by WBD over the NBA’s decision to grant its future rights package to ESPN, Amazon and NBC. In what is being described as a network “trade,” TNT’s hit show with Charles Barkley, “Inside the NBA,” will air on ESPN starting next NBA season.
WBD, meanwhile, will receive 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 by the NBA’s announcement, the Big 12 piece is a major 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 subsequent television contract negotiations, Yormark said.
ESPN and FOX remain the Big 12’s “flagship partners,” he noted, and the networks will continue to air their committed slate of football and basketball games. No content will be reduced on ESPN and FOX linear platforms. The league’s fourth partner, CBS Sports, will broadcast 26 men’s basketball games annually in an expansion of a previous deal, the conference announced in September.
“This is in addition 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 increased promotion and marketing around the Big 12 and conference brands.”
During an interesting time in college sports media rights, the Big 12 remains the only power conference to partner with sports media giants ESPN and FOX. FOX has a long-term and lucrative agreement with the Big Ten as its primary partner. It has sublicensed games to NBC and CBS. The SEC and ACC work exclusively with FOX rival ESPN. Both leagues broadcast on their own ESPN-owned networks.
The Big 12-WBD sublicense agreement fills further linear windows at a time when two conferences, the Pac-12 and Mountain West, will soon enter the market to negotiate new packages. Two years ago, the Big 12 went early and jumped ahead of the Pac-12 to sign a new deal with ESPN and FOX that experts say left the Pac-12 headed for implosion. The league failed to secure a suitable TV contract for its group of restless members, causing a fallout that left only 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 headed to the Big 12 football championship game – a potential ratings bonanza for the league. FOX’s pregame show, “Big Noon Kickoff,” comes from the site of four Big 12 games this year – three of which featured Sanders’ Colorado team.
The new sublicense agreement sets the stage for the league’s upcoming negotiations on its next television deal. Yormark is considering splitting the deal by selling the football and men’s basketball units separately. Most conference television contracts are sold as one package. However, the Big 12’s basketball success has the commissioner considering a split.
The league is considering more revenue-generating concepts. Most notably, Big 12 officials are in deep discussions with Allstate over a naming rights sponsorship, which could change the league’s actual name to “Allstate 12.” Yormark declined to comment on the negotiations with the insurance giant.
