ESPN, The CW reach ACC sublicense agreement; Raycom Sports continues to produce

Syndication: The Greenville News

The CW will continue to carry ACC football and men’s and women’s basketball for the foreseeable future.

The Nexstar-owned network announced on Wednesday that it has reached a sublicense agreement with ESPN for ACC programming through the 2030-31 season. The deal will see The CW carry 14 regular-season football games, 30 men’s basketball games, and 10 women’s basketball games each season.

News of the agreement comes shortly after The CW and ESPN struck a deal to make all CW Sports programming available on the ESPN Unlimited app.

The CW first began airing ACC games in 2023 after reaching a deal with Raycom Sports, which itself had sublicensed the games from ESPN for distribution on regional sports networks. During the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy proceedings that year, Raycom indicated it wanted to move its games off the Diamond-owned networks, and Diamond subsequently relinquished the contract, paving the way for a deal with The CW.

Raycom Sports will continue to produce ACC games for The CW under the new arrangement.

The CW’s ACC package put the network on the map from a sports perspective. At the time, The CW had other sports deals with a fledgling LIV Golf league and aired Inside the NFL, but ACC football and basketball legitimized it as a destination for live sports. Now, The CW boasts deals with WWE NXT, NASCAR’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, the Pac-12, and several other properties.

“The conference was an early believer in our vision to become a broadcast destination for sports,” The CW Network president Brad Schwartz said in the announcement. “We are thrilled to continue our relationship for another four seasons and provide the widest reach possible for all their games.”

For the ACC, The CW is a natural partner. The network’s package is filled with third-tier games that were not otherwise selected for ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, or the ACC Network, yet they nevertheless receive national distribution. Under the previous arrangement, these games would’ve been carved up among regional sports networks and given much smaller platforms.