US college sports conference the Big 12 has confirmed a new 13-year rights deal, from 2012-13 to 2024-25, with sports broadcaster ESPN.
The agreement will run alongside the conference’s 13-year contract with the Fox Sports division of US network Fox.
The two deals are worth a total of $2.6 billion, or $200 million per season, according to ESPN.
For the ESPN agreement, the broadcaster and conference renegotiated the terms of the final four years of an existing eight-year deal, which would have run until the end of the 2015-16 season.
ESPN and Fox Sports will share coverage of a minimum of 25 games per season from the conference’s American football competition, but ESPN will continue as the primary rights-holder of Big 12 men’s basketball.
ESPN reached a verbal agreement for the new deal in May, just over a year after Fox struck its contract extension.
“This agreement gives us long-term stability, more games and more flexibility for when and how fans can see their favourite teams,” ESPN president John Skipper said.
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said that the deals with ESPN and Fox had “cemented” the stability of the conference, which now has 10 universities following the recent departures of Texas A&M and Missouri and the additions of Texas Christian University and West Virginia.