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The upcoming Duke-Michigan men’s basketball matchup—scheduled for Dec. 21 at Madison Square Garden and broadcast on Amazon Prime Video—is in the process of being moved to loanDepot park, the home ballpark of MLB’s Marlins, multiple sources confirmed to Front Office Sports.
The ostensible purpose of the move is to circumvent the Big Ten’s media-rights deal with primary partner Fox by relocating from New York—which is on the outer edge of conference territory due to Rutgers—to Florida, where the Big Ten does not have a footprint.
Discussions about the baseball stadium hosting the ACC–Big Ten hoops clash are far along but not yet finalized, and no contracts have been signed, according to sources.
CBS Sports first reported the news of the unprecedented move Wednesday night.
The matchup is the second game of a non-conference series between the two heavyweights. This past February, Duke and Michigan squared off at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.
The Big Ten was “miffed” about the arrangement between Duke, Michigan, and Amazon, Yahoo Sports previously reported, and was said to have notified the ACC and ESPN that it retained the rights to the non-conference Duke-Michigan basketball game.
On April 30, Duke announced a multiyear deal with Amazon Prime Video for the streamer to exclusively broadcast three marquee neutral-site nonconference men’s basketball games per season. Included in that was Duke’s Dec. 21 game against Michigan at Madison Square Garden.
Last month, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said he supported Duke’s Amazon deal, despite the reported pushback from the Big Ten. “To Duke’s credit, they came up with something creative and they brought it to ESPN and us,” Phillips said.
Amazon and the ACC did not object to the move, sources told FOS, and the streamer remains excited for its entry into college sports.
The matchup would mark the first college basketball game played at loanDepot park, which found success hosting its first hockey game in January—the 2026 NHL Winter Classic between the hometown Florida Panthers and New York Rangers.
A Duke spokesperson would not confirm the move when reached for comment by FOS, while a Michigan spokesperson said: “We’re continuing to work through the details and finalize our game with Duke in 2026. We’ll share more information once everything is official.” The Marlins declined to comment.
Amazon and the Big Ten declined to comment for this story. Spokespeople for the ACC, Fox, and Madison Square Garden did not immediately provide responses to requests for comments from FOS on Thursday morning.
Media Matters
The Duke-Michigan situation is the latest attempt to circumvent conference media-rights deals in college sports.
As big of a deal as it is, the disruption levels if and when something similar happens in football will be orders of magnitude bigger, as there are far fewer games and far bigger viewership totals for top regular-season contests.
USC and Notre Dame cancelled their football matchups in 2026 and 2027 after the Trojans reportedly explored moving an edition of its annual Notre Dame matchup to Las Vegas—or even out of the country to Mexico City—and bringing on Netflix to broadcast the game.
Sports agency Intersport—which organizes premier college basketball events like big-time Thanksgiving Day matchups—has been hired for logistical help around the Duke-Michigan game, a source confirmed to FOS.
Miami’s loanDepot park is adding college basketball to its list of non-baseball events that included the debut of volleyball and tennis last year.
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