New Big East Television Deal

Wanna play ball on national television? Play in the Big East.

While the Big Ten is considering eschewing ESPN to sign a more lucrative contract with Fox that would actually decrease exposure for its basketball programs, the Big East keeps getting bigger.

Per the Matt Eagan at the Hartford Courant, it looks like the Big East is about to finalize a boffo television deal with ESPN. The new agreement would include both football and basketball - - check out a few of the expected enhancements (read: extra hoops broadcasts):

....Under the terms, ESPN would agree to show every intraconference basketball game (except for those on CBS) on one of its outlets. Games would be shown on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNU, ESPN 360 - a broadband service that allows fans to watch games on their home computers - or the ESPN regional network.

The Big East is already part of the network's prime time Big Monday package, but under the new deal the network would add a nationally televised Thursday game to be shown in prime time on either ESPN or ESPN2.

Basketball games would also be part of the ESPN Full Court package, a pay-per-view plan that allows fans to see games not broadcast in their area.

In addition, every game of the Big East tournament would be televised by ESPN or ESPN2.