The old Big East officially announced a new television deal with ESPN Tuesday, while the new Big East is on the verge of announcing a deal with Fox Sports.
As had previously been reported by multiple outlets, ESPN announced Tuesday that it will televise Big East football and basketball games through the 2019-20 academic year. The agreement begins this fall for basketball and in 2014 for football (the 2013 football season is covered by ESPN’s current deal).
Under the new contract, the ESPN family of networks will televise all conference football games and 170 men’s basketball games. The men’s basketball conference championship game will air on either ABC or ESPN, while the women’s title game will air on ESPN or ESPN2.
The old Big East will be renamed later this year, as the conference sold its name to the “Catholic 7” — a group of seven basketball schools that broke off from the conference earlier this year. The new Big East is expected to announce a multi-year television deal with Fox Sports on Wednesday.
The new conference is also expected to make official the additions of Creighton, Butler and Xavier to the seven existing schools, and announce that the annual basketball tournament will take place at Madison Square Garden.
(Old Big East news from ESPN Media Zone; new Big East news from Chicago Tribune)
