SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Sometime in the next couple of months, the Summit League will announce what these days is deemed a "media rights agreement." The mid-major conference of which North Dakota State is a member hopes to have a national television partner and a one-stop streaming partner, which may or may not be the same entity.
"We're nearing the end point," Summit League commissioner Josh Fenton said in early March at the conference basketball tournament. "We're not quite there yet."
Securing a new media deal has been a priority for Fenton since he took over the commissioner's job from Tom Douple a year ago, improving an area many believe the Summit fell behind peers like the Big Sky Conference and Horizon League.
A committee that includes NDSU athletic director Matt Larsen and several others, plus representatives from Collegiate Sports Management Group, has been meeting regularly to explore options.
The Summit has no national TV presence other than its conference basketball title games being carried by one of the ESPN networks. Some in the league, including Larsen, have long believed the Summit needed to have some regular-season basketball games broadcast on a national linear (cable, satellite) network for broader exposure.
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The conference has never generated much fan loyalty or brand awareness over its history as first the Mid-Continent Conference and, since 2007, the Summit League. It's mostly been a collection of disparate, often transitory, institutions loosely tied by geography but mostly wed by the need to be part of a conference.
Fenton said building national recognition and "fan and brand affinity" are two of the goals in inking a new media deal.
"National visibility, brand and fan affinity, revenue generation and finding ways to protect our local linear relationships that are important to a good portion of our schools," Fenton said.
Fenton, nor anybody else in the league who's been contacted, will go farther than that. But it's assumed the league could land regular-season men's games on a linear network like one of the ESPN channels (likely ESPN2 or ESPNU) or CBS Sports Network. Streaming options could include ESPN+, FloSports, Midco Sports or Forum Communications Co.
Midco is currently the broadcast and streaming partner for South Dakota State, South Dakota and North Dakota as well as being the Summit League's partner that carries the men's and women's basketball tournaments (up to the championship games) and other conference events. Forum Communications, owner of The Forum and InForum, is the broadcast and streaming partner for NDSU through its WDAY-TV stations.
The Summit League regular season is a mish-mash of local rights, with local broadcasts fed to ESPN+. Games are often difficult to find, vary widely in quality and may or may not cost a fee to view.
Fenton said the league's new streaming deal will aggregate local broadcasts into one platform and will require schools to meet minimum production standards.
"We want to aggregate a platform where essentially all team sports, including some of the championships, are under one digital platform," Fenton said. "So you as a fan of school XYZ can watch your team on the same digital platform whether they are at home or on the road."
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The linear component could include somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 regular-season games and, possibly, both the semifinals and championships of the men's and women's basketball tournaments.
One mid-major example at which to look might be the East Coast-based Colonial Athletic Association. The league recently signed a four-year extension with CBS Sports Network that will include at least 20 CAA regular-season men's basketball games in addition to the semifinals and finals of the conference men's basketball tournament and the title game of the women's tournament.
At the same time, the CAA announced what it called a "new eight-figure agreement" with FloSports to serve as the digital platform for live and on-demand coverage of league sports through 2026-27. It's "the most lucrative media rights deal in league history and will see over 1,200 games air annually, including the majority of conference championships," according to the league.
The Horizon League last year announced "a multi-year, multi-platform media rights agreement" with ESPN. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The conference said at least 500 league events will be available on ESPN+ annually, while ESPN linear networks would continue to be the home of the Horizon League men’s basketball semifinals and championship, five regular season men’s basketball contests, and the women’s basketball championship game.
Fenton wouldn't answer specifically what the financials of a Summit League deal with a streaming service or national TV partner might look like.
"What I will say is that what you read about media rights agreements that exist at the Power Five level and, you know, what all of us in the mid-major space have from rights agreements — it's a very different neighborhood than us," he said.
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