AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. (AP) 鈥� At a time when college athletic departments are desperately looking for new revenue sources, Duke 鈥渃ame up with something creative鈥� and landed with streaming giant Amazon, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner Jim Phillips said.
Phillips praised the Blue Devils for working with ACC television partner ESPN to secure a first-of-its-kind contract that could set a precedent for future cash grabs around the league and maybe the country.
鈥淚f there鈥檚 other opportunities that are out there that schools bring forward, we鈥檒l look at it,鈥� Phillips said Wednesday while wrapping up the league鈥檚 inside a posh resort in northeast Florida. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 innovative by Duke.鈥�
Phillips offered some insight into how the deal came together and said negotiations never undermined the ACC鈥檚 current TV contracts. Duke agreed to future scheduling commitments with ESPN in exchange for the three games on Amazon Prime Video.
鈥淚鈥檓 not worried about it because ESPN was in every one of the conversations,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淭o Duke鈥檚 credit, they came up with something creative, and they brought it to ESPN and us. Where it finished and where it started maybe wasn鈥檛 exactly the same spot, but at the end of the day, they also get negotiated.鈥�
Amazon and Duke announced an agreement last month for Prime to exclusively air three Duke men鈥檚 basketball games during the 2026-27 season. The trio of games will be marquee matchups inside professional sports arenas and feature one of the biggest brands in college hoops: Duke.
The Blue Devils will play UConn in Las Vegas on Nov. 25, defending national champion Michigan in New York on Dec. 21, and Gonzaga in Detroit on Feb. 20. The three-game slate signifies the start of Amazon delving into live college sports.
It won鈥檛 be the last, and everyone in the college sports landscape surely took notice and started scheming up ways to find something similar to create more money. Several ACC administrators and basketball coaches said the deal provides a potential path toward additional financial resources.
鈥淚 still have some questions on it, going back and forth,鈥� Florida State athletic director Michael Alford said. 鈥淣ot just questions, more knowledge than anything. I want to see how that impacts us, what can that mean for us in the future and how do we look at things differently if given those opportunities or present those opportunities to the league that we have a game that maybe we want to look at moving and doing in our favor.
鈥淏ut I do have a lot of questions about it still 鈥� about how it all worked out.鈥�
The Big Ten does, too.
The league reportedly has notified ACC and ESPN officials that it owns the rights to the Duke-Michigan game at Madison Square Garden because it’s scheduled to take place in 鈥渟hared territory.鈥�
The Big Ten and ACC TV partners agreed to alternate broadcast rights to neutral-site games between members played in shared territory like New York City, according to Yahoo Sports. Since ESPN televised last season鈥檚 Duke-Michigan game in another shared territory, Washington, D.C., Fox believes it owns this matchup.
鈥淒uke liked getting this little deal with Amazon,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淒uke can talk to the Big Ten about it. The commissioner is not part of that one. I鈥檓 not involved in it. It鈥檚 one less thing I got to deal with.鈥�
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