The neutral site college basketball game between Duke and Michigan scheduled for late December is now called off, according to a report by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports.
The interconference matchup between the longtime rivals was expected to air on Amazon’s Prime Video as part of a three-game agreement between the streaming provider and Duke University for neutral site men’s college basketball games. The Big Ten Conference and Fox Sports challenged the inclusion of the Michigan game in the Prime deal on the grounds that its location — Madison Square Garden — is “shared territory” for the Big Ten and ACC as such is subject to an agreement alternating neutral site rights between the conferences, reported by Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports.
As a result, the Duke-Michigan game fell under the control of the Big Ten, which has a media rights deal with Fox Sports. The ACC and ESPN had granted Duke permission for the neutral site package, and conference commissioner Jim Phillips called the deal “innovative.” Phillips, who spoke on the topic at the ACC Spring Meetings in May, added that he is “not worried about it because ESPN was in every one of the conversations.”
Duke and Michigan reportedly attempted to move the game to loanDepot Park in Miami, Fla., something that would have presumably eliminated territorial restrictions. As of Friday morning, the game was still marked on the Duke men’s basketball schedule originating from Madison Square Garden and airing on Prime Video.
The date, venue and platform are remaining the same, but Duke will now play Texas Tech instead, per Norlander. The teams faced off at the arena last season in a contest that ended as a one-point loss for the Blue Devils. Madison Square Garden will play host to the CBS Sports Classic two days before the matchup, featuring Kansas-Ohio State and North Carolina-Kentucky. Connecticut and Virginia will face off at MSG on Monday, Dec. 20 in another neutral-site game, according to Norlander.
The remaining neutral-site games under the agreement with Prime Video include a matchup against UConn from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. on Thanksgiving Eve at a time to be determined. The other neutral site game takes place after football season on Saturday, Feb. 20 against Gonzaga from Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Mich.
There have reportedly been other attempts to sell neutral-site games that would have seemingly circumvented existing media rights deals. Netflix had tried to land the rights for the annual matchup between USC and Notre Dame, but officials at the Big Ten denied that effort on the grounds that USC was not permitted to sell rights for non-conference games independently, according to a report by John Ourand of Puck.
Big Ten college football and basketball games air under seven-year media rights deals with Paramount, Comcast and Fox Corporation that began in 2023, reportedly worth a collective $1.1 billion annually. Under the agreements, Fox airs the most college basketball games per season. ESPN previously held rights to the Big Ten for approximately four decades, but the two sides were unable to reach a new agreement after the network declined a seven-year deal worth $380 million annually, per a report by Joe Reedy and Ralph D. Russo of the Associated Press.
The Big Ten expanded to 18 members in 2024 with the additions of Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington. NBC Sports was in discussions to sublicense rights to the Big Ten football championship game with Netflix and Prime Video, per a report by Ourand, but the contest ultimately went to Fox Sports.
