Mick Cronin: Duke-Michigan on Amazon has ‘no chance of going through’ because of Fox

Mick Cronin doesn’t think Duke-Michigan at Madison Square Garden is going to happen on Amazon. At least not with Michigan involved.

“No chance it goes through,” the UCLA Bruins head men’s basketball coach told USA Today. “Not when Fox has paid hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for the rights.”

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Cronin’s skepticism is well-founded.

When Duke announced its landmark three-game deal with Amazon Prime Video last month — UConn in Las Vegas on Nov. 25, Michigan at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 21, and Gonzaga in Detroit on Feb. 20 — the immediate question was whether the Big Ten would allow Michigan to participate. It hasn’t. According to On3’s Brett McMurphy, Michigan never received approval from the Big Ten for the deal, which means the Wolverines could be replaced as Duke’s opponent in the marquee Garden game.

The Big Ten’s objection is rooted in a rights dispute that we covered in depth here at Awful Announcing. The conference claims it controls the media rights to a Duke-Michigan neutral-site game in New York under an alternating arrangement with the ACC for games played in “shared territory” — markets where both conferences have natural broadcast interest, like New York City — per Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.

The precedent behind that claim dates to Duke playing Illinois at MSG on Fox in 2025, then playing Michigan on ESPN in Washington, D.C., this past February, as ESPN’s “return” in the alternating pattern. That February game drew 4.3 million viewers, making it ESPN’s most-watched college basketball game in seven years, and was part of ESPN’s record day of college basketball viewership. The Big Ten’s argument is that the next game in that pattern — Duke-Michigan in New York — belongs to Fox.

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An IP lawyer who analyzed the Big Ten’s claim was skeptical, pointing out that Fox’s contractual relationship runs through ESPN and the ACC, not through Duke or Amazon directly. Duke isn’t a…

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Publish date : 2026-05-20 17:00:00

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