Big 12 Picks Up Another Linear Television Partner For Future Media Rights
Nov 18, 2024, 10:22 AM | Updated: 4:54 pm
As part of bringing Inside the NBA to ESPN, ESPN is sublicensing Big 12 Conference football and men's basketball games to TNT Sports beginning in 2025. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
(Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY—As part of ESPN’s acquisition to distribute the pre- and postgame show “Inside The NBA,” the Big 12 Conference picked up another television partner.
ESPN announced on Monday that they reached an agreement with TNT Sports to distribute Inside The NBA, hosted by Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith. TNT will continue to create and produce the show, but it will be distributed on ESPN and ABC.
Along with ESPN and FOX, Big 12 football and men’s basketball games will be on TNT Sports beginning in 2025. pic.twitter.com/Hp7XoHcSfq
— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) November 18, 2024
As part of the agreement, ESPN sublicensed Big 12 football and men’s basketball games to be televised on TNT Sports. These games, according to a report from Yahoo! Sports, would have previously been games that would air on ESPN+.
The sublicensing agreement will be in effect beginning in 2025, the first year of the Big 12’s new media rights.
Big 12 Conference will have four linear TV partners beginning in 2025
TNT will televise 13 Big 12 football games and 15 men’s basketball games.
Games that air on TNT Sports will also be available on the streaming service MAX.
Beginning in 2025, the Big 12 will have three linear television options for its football inventory (ESPN, FOX, TNT) and four networks for basketball (ESPN, FOX, TNT, and CBS).
The 2024 college football season marks TNT Sports’ return to college football. TNT was one of the first cable networks to air live college football broadcasts in the 1980s and aired SEC football on TBS in the 1990s.
Then, in the early 2000s, they had a package of games with the Big 12 and former Pac-12 Conference.
This year, TNT has been televising Mountain West Conference games. They will televise two first-round games from the College Football Playoff in December.
In basketball, TNT has been one of the networks that airs NCAA Tournament games since 2011.
The Big 12’s upcoming media rights package begins in 2025 and runs through 2031.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.
