The Best Take We’ve Seen On The Duke-Amazon Deal

Mar 2, 2026; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Duke Blue Devils head coach Jon Scheyer during the second half against the NC State Wolfpack at Lenovo Center. Mandatory Credit: Zachary Taft-Imagn Images | Zachary Taft-Imagn Images

After the news broke about the Duke-Amazon deal to stream three games, and then the Big Ten’s reaction, we started looking for interesting responses. The smartest, most informed post we saw about it was from North Carolina IP attorney David McKenzie, who is also a Duke grad.

His post on Twitter was pretty remarkable, because it appeared to thoroughly deconstruct the argument that the Big Ten and Fox are making.

More than that, he gets into a very interesting question: why are Duke and Amazon doing this?

Here’s his basic argument for that:

“The deeper point, and the one worth dwelling on, is that the rights architecture schools accepted a decade ago to keep their conferences intact is now being tested by the schools themselves. Duke did not break the system. Duke worked within it, asked ESPN for permission, gave up something in return, and brought a streaming partner to the table that the network was apparently happy to let bear the risk of an experiment Disney has not figured out how to run on its own. The B1G and Fox would prefer that schools not learn this trick. They are about to learn it anyway. And the next negotiation, whenever it comes, will reflect what Amazon’s three games taught everyone about who the audience really is and what they will pay to watch.

“The Duke-Amazon arrangement is being described as a turning point for college sports media. My honest guess is that it’s more of a market test, structured by a rights holder who needed information from a 200M+ subscriber base more than it needed three basketball games. It’s now being resisted by a competitor who cannot afford to be that patient. The law explains how the deal got done. The strategy explains why ESPN wanted it done this way. And the B1G’s complaint, stripped of its proprietary language, is the complaint of a conference that wishes it had thought of it first.”