Sports Media Podcast: Big East boss Val Ackerman’s view of college hoops

This week’s Sports Media Podcast turns its attention to college basketball, with Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman joining SBJ’s Austin Karp to diagnose the state of the men’s and women’s games in the wake of football-driven realignment and after the ascension of Caitlin Clark to the WNBA.

Highlights include:

• Where college basketball stands: “It’s a sector that’s going through a lot of change. We’ve got great history, great tradition. The NCAA Tournament, in my judgment, is one of the most exciting events in sports and will continue to be just that for many years to come. But we’re in a time of transformation … there’s a lot of unanswered questions about what this is all going to mean for college basketball as we head into the future. We’re trying to set our sights more directly on this upcoming season. We’ve got a defending two-time national champion in UConn. We’ve got just a continuing sense of commitment by Big East schools across the board, with respect to basketball, which has been our calling card, really, for the last 45 years.”

• The importance of superstars such as UConn’s Paige Bueckers: “This will be her coming out year. She’s coming off of injuries. She has been set back a bit in the last few years, but from all reports, she’s healthy and ready to go. And the same can be said for the rest of UConn’s team. They’ve had quite a few injuries over the last few years. She’ll be the player to watch, at least among them this year in women’s college basketball. And she’s got her coach, Geno Auriemma, and now celebrating his 40th year at UConn, which is a really big deal.”

• On the Big East’s media rights deal starting in 2025-26: “It was really an accomplishment for us to cut a deal, a successor deal, to our existing arrangement, which has one more year to run. This is year 12 of a deal that was struck in 2013, principally with Fox, [with] CBS as a sublicensee. We’re very happy that we’re going to be in business not only with Fox but also with NBC Peacock and TNT Sports. Peacock is actually going to get a head start on the package, with a package of men’s basketball games this season, that’ll be airing on that platform. We know we’re in great company, particularly coming off the Olympics, when there have been reports of subscription growth, not surprisingly, in the platform, so that can only help us. TNT, of course, has been the longtime carrier of March Madness, and has a long history with the NBA, so we know they know basketball. We’re really excited about it, in an environment where exposure is so important.”