Duke’s Amazon deal reportedly replacement for standard multi-team event

Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

Nearly a week out from the original announcement, and Duke’s landmark deal with Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service for a package of three regular-season men’s basketball games next season is still the talk of the sports media town square. Rightfully so. The deal could portend a sea change in how colleges approach the packaging and sale of media rights.

On Tuesday, more details trickled out about the exact arrangement Duke has entered into. According to a report by Ben Portnoy in Sports Business Journal, industry sources characterize Duke’s three-game package as “essentially a replacement for a multi-team event.”

College basketball fans are familiar with multi-team events, or MTEs. These are the early-season tournaments, often around Thanksgiving, where teams travel to far-flung destinations like Maui or The Bahamas (or less excitingly, Niceville, FL) to play two or three games in as many days. Teams are allowed to play in one such event each year, and those events can, hypothetically, sell broadcast rights on the open market (although at this point, most MTEs are owned and operated by ESPN).

Instead of participating in one of these MTEs next season, Duke essentially created its own and sold it to Amazon. At least, that’s how those within the industry are viewing it. It’s important to note that Duke reportedly did not sell these games directly to Amazon; third-party promoters arranged the games and subsequently sold them to Amazon.

The deal hasn’t been without contention, however. Fox Sports, the Big Ten rightsholder, has claimed broadcast rights for one of Duke’s scheduled games against Michigan at Madison Square Garden. The network claims that, based on a previously agreed-upon alternation pattern with ESPN and the ACC, it should receive the rights to Duke-Michigan because ESPN broadcast the same matchup last season from Washington, D.C.

There’s reason to believe Fox faces an uphill battle with that claim, in no small part because its contractual agreement is with ESPN and the ACC, not Duke and Amazon. Assuming this deal goes off without a hitch next season, there’s no doubt that other schools, both in basketball and football, will try to emulate the arrangement.