As I type this, it’s the morning of the Wednesday after Labor Day. That means the Big East men’s basketball schedule could be released at any time now. The schedule is always delayed until after Labor Day, and this year is no different.
The thing that comes along with the men’s basketball schedule is the television assignments for the entire season of hoops. Sometimes that comes with the schedule, sometimes that’s delayed a little bit after the schedule. However it goes this year, we will shortly know how we’ll be able to watch all of Marquette’s games this season. That’s valuable information this year more than any other year, because there’s a new television contract that starts with the 2025-26 season. The Big East will have games carried by Fox Sports, NBC/Peacock, TNT Sports, and thanks to a separate deal that was announced this summer, we will see some Big East men’s basketball find its way to ESPN+. That’s a lot of potential options for placement!
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Fox Sports is still the Big East’s primary television partner, since they will be the home of the men’s basketball conference tournament title game for the length of the TV deal. And so, that raises the question: Are we getting Fox Sports Whip-Around coverage for the opening night of the season again this year?
In the past, I know that this has not been a very popular option taken by the Big East’s television partner. It never bothered me much because I’m a season ticket holder so I was at the Marquette game and didn’t have to use the Fox Sports app to watch the game in its entirety, but I understand the frustration amongst the out-of-town MU fans.
But starting this season, Fox will “feature at least 80 men’s and women’s basketball contests,” NBC and Peacock will “present more than 60 men’s and women’s regular season and tournament games,” and TNT Sports gets “more than 65 regular season” games. The ESPN+ deal sends “a minimum of 25 non-conference games” to The World Wide Leader’s streaming platform.
That’s a pretty diverse spread of contests, and it’s at least reasonable to wonder how all of that will get divided out, particularly since the math includes women’s basketball as well.
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Here’s what we can say for certain: If Fox Sports WANTS to do Whip-Around coverage for opening night of the men’s basketball season, they have the inventory to do it.
All 11 men’s basketball teams have their non-conference schedules posted as of this morning. Eight of the 11 are playing home games on Monday, November 3rd, the first day of the season. The outliers are:
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Butler, who opens the season on Wednesday, November 5th against Southern Indiana
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Creighton, who opens the season on Wednesday against South Dakota
Everyone else in the league is playing on Monday with the rough equivalent of Marquette’s game against Albany. If this was last year, that’s absolutely Fox Sports Whip-Around coverage. This year? When ESPN+ needs 25 games one way or another? I’m not 100% sure. It feels like it’s going to be Whip-Around, but if ESPN+ gets two games and Peacock takes two games, all of a sudden, Fox only has the rights to broadcast four games, and it would be very silly to do the Whip-Around.
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