Missouri Valley Conference extends its media deal with ESPN. Here are the details

The Missouri Valley Conference and ESPN have opted to remain teammates in the business of broadcasting basketball games.

The Valley and the sports network reached agreement Tuesday on a five-year contract extension to their existing media rights agreement. The previous deal, announced in July 2015, was for 10 years and was good through the 2023-24 academic year. The new deal will put MVC events on ESPN platforms through 2028-29.

“The five-year extension of the ESPN-MVC media rights agreement emphasizes a long-term collaboration that has worked successfully for decades,” MVC commissioner Jeff Jackson said in a release. “While there is an unprecedented climate of change in our industry, particularly in the linear and digital live-event production space, our relationship with ESPN continues to be one of cooperation, innovation and brand promotion.”

ESPN retains the rights to the men’s basketball tournament semifinals and title game and MVC women’s basketball tournament each year. The agreement will continue to feature multiple men’s basketball and sports telecasts across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.

Stand pat or go big? Examining the future of Missouri Valley Conference basketball

The Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball championship will continue to be broadcast on CBS and streamed live on Paramount+. This upcoming year will be the 20th consecutive season CBS Sports has presented the Championship game. CBS Sports Network will televise the MVC tournament semifinals — which it has aired for the past nine seasons — as well as a package of regular-season games.

As part of the deal – which continues a business relationship that began in 1986 – ESPN, the Missouri Valley Conference and its 12 member institutions will continue to "work collaboratively to develop and improve" MVC's co-branded digital platform, the so-called The Valley on ESPN, which has produced and distributed more than 6,300 live events since its launch in August 2015.

Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Missouri Valley Conference extends media rights contract with ESPN