Have to say, it’s quite the fortuitous circumstance that the Big East had something to sell at the exact moment that ESPN was ready to launch their new direct-to-consumer service……
June 27: I wonder why it’s been a year since the Big East announced their new media deal and we haven’t heard a thing about the future of the league’s contract with FloSports for the Big East Digital Network.
July 8: The Big East announces that they have signed a new six year contract with ESPN, moving the events that used to be on the Big East Digital Network on FloSports to ESPN+.
By the time you read this, I have already canceled my FloSports annual subscription. It re-ups on September 9th, can’t be too safe.
Here’s the exact phrasing of what is going to ESPN+ from the press release:
A minimum of 75 women’s basketball and 200 Olympic sports events will stream on ESPN+ annually beginning in the 2025-26 academic season. This deal will also include a minimum of 25 non-conference games annually for BIG EAST men’s basketball.
Okay, so let’s get this part out of the way: This is not a completely perfect “everything from FloSports is going to ESPN+” situation. That’s because the television contract with Fox, NBC, and TNT Sports was “tripling” the amount of women’s basketball games to as many as 65 starting with the 2025-26 season. That’s grabbing a whole bunch of the WBB inventory that would have been on FloSports in previous seasons, and that’s not the case now. At least 75 women’s basketball games are going to ESPN+, so that’s still a pretty healthy number, more than Fox/NBC/TNT Sports will have.
The “200 Olympic sports events” phrasing is interesting. When the Big East expanded the FloSports deal from just women’s basketball to “everything that’s not men’s basketball” in 2021-22, the number of events covered by the deal was over 600 with more than 225 getting a Big East Digital Network production tag. The other 350+ events were just the individual Big East school producing events and putting them on FloSports. The 200 on ESPN+ is a “minimum,” so we’ll have to wait for the volleyball and soccer seasons to start to see what we’re actually getting here.
AND FINALLY, we have to note that it seems that the Big East had to throw ESPN+ a little bit of a men’s basketball sweet treat in order for them to bite on this deal. 25 non-conference games in men’s basketball is not too much of a lift, maybe at least two each per team. The question becomes whether or not ESPN+ can lay claim to, say, Marquette/Maryland since that’s a game that the Big East controls, or whether it’s going to be a steady stream of Marquette/Albany and Marquette/Little Rock going to the World Wide Leader.
In any case, I feel comfortable saying that if you want to make sure you can watch every single Marquette men’s basketball game this season, you are going to need access to the following channels/services:
Fox
FS1
FS2
NBC
Peacock
TNT
TBS
ESPN+
I think it’s possible/likely that NBC/Universal puts games on USA Network as well. That’s been the home of Atlantic 10 basketball for the past few years during conference play, so it wouldn’t be out of the question. Are we going to see games made exclusive to HBO Max? Can’t rule it out, but if you’re not a subscriber there at the moment — I’m not! — then you can probably keep your powder dry until the TV assignments are announced in September.
Related: Can’t help but notice that Marquette has two non-conference men’s basketball games on a neutral site that need a TV partner. Kinda curious if this renewed partnership between ESPN and the Big East helps solve that issue.
Big picture: I think this is a net positive for Marquette. The fact of the matter is that FloSports was a liiiiiiiiittle bit pricey if all you wanted to see was MU’s women’s basketball games. If you were a deep sicko like me and you wanted to watch as much soccer, volleyball, and lacrosse as possible on top of your women’s hoops, then the annual subscription was actually a pretty solid deal. But the price point — remember what it cost to get FloSports for a month to watch the men’s basketball game against Georgia? — was definitely driving some people off. Now all of these games will be covered by a service that gives you a lot more of a similar product as well as access to NHL games and F1 races and La Liga and Bundesliga and the 30 For 30 documentary series and so on. Seems like a better deal overall, and I’m guessing a lot of people even already have ESPN+ because they have the Hulu/Disney+/ESPN+ bundle.
I’ll close by pointing out that ESPN is launching their direct-to-consumer streaming service this fall. Boy, it sure seems lucky that the Big East’s original 12 year contract with Fox Sports is running out at exactly the precise moment where ESPN is not against the idea of grabbing whatever bonus content they can get their hands on to help launch their standalone service, huh? Anyway, ESPN+ by itself will cost you $12 a month or $120 for a year…. which is not a discount of any kind…… while the full ESPN service will run you $30 and $300. Yes, there are special Disney+/Hulu/ESPN bundles if you’re interested.
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