MAC Agrees To New 13-Year TV Rights Deal With ESPN

Weeknight MACtion is sticking with ESPN.

According to a report by the Associated Press, the Mid-American Conference and ESPN have agreed to a new 13-year TV rights deal that extends through the 2026-2027 season. The new deal means ESPN will retain television distribution rights for MAC football.

The AP cites an anonymous source familiar with the deal. ESPN's Brett McMurphy corroborated the report.

MAC & @ESPN rewrite media rights deal, extends new deal thru 2026-27. Tops old deal worth $1M/year

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) August 18, 2014

The MAC's current deal was set to expire following the 2016-2017 season and pays each school around $100,000 a year in TV revenue. According to the AP's report the new deal reworks the final three years of the old eight-year deal to upping the annual payout to the conference for the full slate of the next 13 seasons.

The deal also apparently gives ESPN some more rights to MAC men's basketball, women's basketball and some Olympic sports.

Back in February, ESPN and the MAC announced launched a digital network, this deal ensures that ESPN will have rights to MAC games to feed this digital MACtion network for some time.

The MAC's payout with ESPN has been painfully low for the length of their relationship. This new deal is supposed to improve the amount of money the MAC receives each year, but a number hasn't been given yet. The MAC has yet to announce the deal, though they said news should be coming soon.

We have some very exciting news coming your way. Stay tuned. #MACtion

— #MACtion (@MACSports) August 18, 2014