Duke Men’s Basketball’s Amazon Deal Has Reportedly Made the Big Ten Mad

Seems like it did not take long for the Blue Devils to make enemies.

Not everyone is reportedly keen on Duke’s new TV era. | Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

On Thursday, we here at SI mused aloud whether Duke men’s basketball’s new agreement to show games on Amazon Prime would disrupt the world of college sports on television.

It seems to have taken one day—one day!—for that to happen.

According to a Friday night report from Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports, the BIg Ten is objecting to the notion that the ACC owns the TV rights to Michigan’s Dec. 21 game against the Blue Devils in New York—which Duke is attempting to show on Amazon Prime.

Here’s a quick look at the two conferences’ reported cases for ownership, as well as who might come out ahead in their dispute.

The reported case for the ACC

Dellenger did not spell out the exact nature of the ACC’s “defense,” but it’s clear that the Blue Devils believe that the neutral-site game is ACC property. Duke, after all, by all accounts went to ESPN for permission to sell its games against UConn, the Wolverines and Gonzaga to Amazon. Because of the Blue Devils’ immense draw power and the ACC’s longstanding media deal, the overwhelming majority of Duke home games are usually shown on the ESPN family of networks. While this isn’t a home game for the Blue Devils, it is worth noting that Durham, N.C., is geographically closer to New York than Ann Arbor, Mich.

The reported case for the Big Ten

The conference’s reported argument is twofold, and rests on the belief that New York is part of shared territory between the ACC and Big Ten’s respective footprints (conferences acting like the royal houses in Dune—God bless the 2020s). Dellenger wrote that the ACC and Big Ten have an agreement “to alternate the broadcast rights of neutral-site games between their members played in” such territory. In 2025, Duke beat Illinois 110–67 in New York on Fox. In 2026, the Blue Devils beat Michigan 68–63 in Washington, D.C. on ESPN. That would put Fox up to bat for 2027; combine that with the fact that the Wolverines (as an opponent Duke sought out) are reportedly obligated to “handle rights issues with its league and its rights holder,” and the Big Ten and its partners have plenty of ammunition.

Between the ACC and Big Ten, who has the stronger case? Is compromise possible?

If the past agreement on neutral site games between the ACC and Big Ten Dellenger references is an actual, written contract, this would appear to be an open-and-shut case. In that event, the Big Ten’s media partners would take control of the game, and with both the Blue Devils and Michigan playing and drawing well it seems likely to air on Fox.

However, that does not mean the two leagues can’t work out some sort of compromise if so motivated. Consider the case of Inside the NBA, which TNT agreed to license to ESPN in a trade for Big 12 basketball and football inventory. In this scenario, maybe Duke and the Wolverines are allowed to play on Amazon, and in exchange Big Ten partners get to take back-to-back turns airing neutral-site games in contested territory in the years to come. What’s a little superseding contract between friends?

Will Duke and Michigan’s issues torpedo the Blue Devils’ deal?

That seems like an unlikely scenario—if the Wolverines miss on this opportunity, we should probably expect another team to snap it up (or the two teams to kick the can to next year, when the ACC would be up in the two conferences’ rotation). After all, Amazon is still expected to show Duke’s games against the Bulldogs and Huskies, suggesting college sports’s streaming train has left the station for the immediate future.

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