ESPN Deal With Fox Gives Longhorn Network Two Football Games

Longhorn Network will carry two Univ. of Texas football games this season, thanks to a programming agreement that ESPN and Fox have signed. The channel will kick off its live game schedule with a Rice-Texas game Sept. 3 at 6:00pm CT. The Rice game will re-air on LHN later that night at 11:00 pm. LHN also picked up the rights to a second to-be-determined game later in the season. ESPN says the second game will be against a Big 12 foe.

Fox, which holds the Big 12's cable rights, granted LHN a limited waiver to allow ESPN to shift the games from ABC to Longhorn Network this season. A source said Fox agreed to the change when ESPN offered certain selection considerations for college football games, including the possibility of relaxing its broadcast exclusivity and allowing Fox to televise Big 12 football games on its broadcast channel starting in '12.