ACC, The CW Agree to Football, Basketball Broadcast Agreement Following Diamond Sports Split

The CW isn’t done adding sports to its broadcast lineup. On Thursday, the channel and the ACC college athletic conference agreed to terms on a four-year broadcast deal to exclusively air 50 college football and basketball games beginning this fall and running through the 2026-27 season.

The CW’s first ACC football game will air on Saturday, Sept. 9 with a matchup between the Pittsburgh Panthers and non-conference opponent Cincinnati Bearcats, with games airing every Saturday throughout the season in the afternoon and in primetime.

In addition to 13 football games, The CW will broadcast 28 men’s and nine women’s basketball games to kick off following the college football season in December. The men’s basketball doubleheaders will air every Saturday afternoon and women’s basketball games will air on Sunday afternoons.

“We are committed to making The CW a destination for live, appointment-viewing sporting events,” The CW president Dennis Miller said. “The ACC is home to some of the most decorated college football and basketball teams in the country and we look forward to welcoming these avid sports fans to the network as we continue to broaden our audience.”

Both entities involved in this deal have gone through the wringer over the past few months, but this deal breathes new life into them moving forward. The CW caught strays due to its agreement to broadcast the LIV Golf tour, as many sports pundits laughed at the golf league and its inability to land on a major broadcast network like CBS, FOX, NBC, or ABC.

Nevermind that the CW has 200 nationwide affiliates, which puts it near the number of affiliates as FOX and CBS, but we believe the sentiment focused more on the network’s lack of national sports offerings. Many local CW affiliates air local sports games but, nationally, the network doesn’t offer much outside of syndicated television shows, movies, compilation programs, and infomercials.

For the ACC, it was involved in a game of rights musical chairs and found itself standing without a seat when the music stopped. Former partners ESPN and FOX haven’t been interested in a new deal, and even Diamond Sports filed a motion to reject its contract to broadcast Atlantic Coast Conference games back in June. But now, both sides come together to find what they were looking for. For the ACC, it’s a national broadcast home. For the CW, it’s sports programming it can hang its hat on to show advertisers and other sports leagues.

“We are thrilled to be adding The CW to our weekly television lineup for ACC football and basketball games,” said ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips. “The CW’s national distribution will directly benefit our student-athletes, teams, alumni and fans. We appreciate ESPN and Raycom working together and look forward to the partnership with The CW.”