On Thursday, Duke announced an exclusive partnership with Amazon to broadcast three Blue Devils basketball games next season against UConn on November 25th in Las Vegas, Michigan on December 21st in New York City, and Gonzaga on February 20th in Detroit.
It's a historic partnership and multi-year deal that gives Duke a new NIL revenue stream. But it's already facing a major early hurdle.
According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, the Big Ten has notified the ACC and ESPN that it believes it owns the rights to the Duke-Michigan game that is now scheduled to stream on Amazon in Madison Square Garden.
The ACC and Big Ten, like many conferences, have a rights-holder agreement that is shared between the two. Per Dellenger, the deal requires the conferences to alternate broadcasting rights in shared territories such as New York City and Washington, D.C. The basis of the Big Ten's argument is that the ACC/ESPN owned the broadcasting rights for this past season's matchup between the Blue Devils and Wolverines in D.C., and it would be the Big Ten's turn to broadcast the game next year.
The Big Ten is providing a serious challenge to Duke's Amazon Deal
Duke went through the proper channels with the ACC and ESPN to strike the landmark deal with Amazon, but likely didn't expect a serious challenge to emerge from the Big Ten.
According to Dellenger, ESPN permitted Duke to proceed with the Amazon deal, but it was the responsibility of the school to secure the opponent. Michigan evidently shares some of the blame for the snafu this matchup is running into:
"If played in “shared territory,” it is traditionally the responsibility of that opponent (in this case Michigan) to handle rights issues with its league and its rights holder," Dellenger writes.
The Big Ten's partnership is with Fox, and it's obvious why they would challenge for the rights to this contest.
Duke-Michigan this past year was one of the biggest non-conference games in the country, and coming off the Wolverines' national title and roster reload, along with Jon Scheyer's team once again looking like a contender, it stands to reason that it will be one of the biggest games of the regular season again in college basketball.
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