FARMINGTON, Utah — The Big Sky Conference and ESPN have announced a five-year extension to their current media rights agreement, which doubles its televised coverage for football and provides a continued platform for the more than 600 Big Sky Conference live events streaming annually on ESPN+ and the ESPN App.
“We are proud to continue our wonderful relationship with ESPN and showcase the tremendous student-athletes, talented coaches, and passionate fan bases across the Big Sky Conference,” Commissioner Tom Wistrcill said.
“As the nation’s preeminent FCS conference, we are thrilled that the increase in televised exposure will provide a national audience with even more opportunities to watch and appreciate our 12 football programs, a nation-best five of which qualified for the 2024 FCS Playoffs.”
The new media rights agreement with ESPN will begin in the 2025-26 academic year and go through 2029-30.
“The Big Sky Conference continues to provide captivating storylines and top-tier competition across its 15 sports, and we’re excited to expand our commitment to showcasing the conference’s incredible student-athletes and member institutions through hundreds of matchups each year across ESPN platforms,” said Mallory Kenny, ESPN director of programming and acquisitions.
The new contract doubles the Big Sky’s exposure for nationally televised football games, with a minimum of four regular-season contests televised on a Friday or Saturday. A minimum of two of those games will air on ESPN or ESPN2.
For Big Sky basketball, ESPN will continue to televise at least one men’s regular-season conference game, as well as three men’s conference tournament games and one women’s conference tournament game. On the men’s side, at least one of the two televised semifinal games will be on either ESPN or ESPN2, with the championship game also having an ESPN or ESPN2 distinction. The women’s championship game will continue to air on ESPNU, which first began in 2022.
In addition to all Big Sky home games for football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball presented on ESPN platforms, the league will continue to feature all home and conference tournament contests for soccer, volleyball, and softball on ESPN+, as well as conference championships for several other Big Sky sports.
Since its launch on ESPN+ in July of 2021, the Big Sky and its member institutions have produced and distributed more than 2,500 live events to date, giving fans a familiar home to watch their favorite Big Sky teams.
The longstanding relationship between the Big Sky Conference and ESPN goes back to ESPN’s formative years, when Big Sky football was featured on the network on October 4, 1980, for Northern Arizona’s homecoming against Idaho State. Since at least 1989, ESPN has annually televised the championship game of the Big Sky Men’s Basketball Tournament.
