Sports briefly: Big 12 and ESPN set new standard with digital deal

The Big 12 has agreed to a deal that gives ESPN the rights to its football championship game through 2024 and makes the league the first Power Five conference to provide exclusive content to ESPN+, the cable giant's online subscription streaming service.

ESPN will pay the conference about $40 million more for these new rights from 2019-24 on top of what it pays for existing deals.

The new agreement calls for Big 12 content on ESPN+ to be branded specifically for the conference, creating a de facto digital conference network.

The deal calls for each school, except Texas and Oklahoma, to have one game per season exclusively shown on ESPN+, starting in 2020.

Texas was excluded because it has a deal with ESPN's Longhorn Network for rights to at least one football game per season. Oklahoma had a local TV agreement in the way.

Also, all Big 12 men's basketball games not appearing on an ESPN TV network — expected to be at least 75 per season — will be shown on ESPN+.

Fox and ESPN share television rights to Big 12 games and are in the middle of 13-year deal worth $2.6 billion.

The U.S. was placed in Group D with Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Panama. The game against Guyana will be June 18. The U.S. will face Trinidad and Tobago in Cleveland on June 22 and Panama in Kansas City, Kan., on June 26.

A citation was issued against a Missouri man accused of flashing a laser at New England quarterback Tom Brady during the Patriots' AFC Championship Game victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium.

Prosecutors said 64-year-old Dwyan Morgan, of Lee's Summit, faces a single count of disturbing the peace, a municipal violation.

Television stations posted footage after the game showing a green light flashing on Brady late in the Patriots' 37-31 overtime victory on Jan. 20. Laser pointers are banned at most sporting events because of the potential for distraction and for safety reasons. The light can damage the retina after even a short period of time.

• Oakland re-signed restricted free-agent running back Jalen Richard, who set career highs last season with 68 catches for 607 yards.

• New England re-signed kicker Stephen Gostkowski and added tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins, who has played for three NFL teams in five seasons.

Women's tennis: The season-long streak of having different winners at each WTA tour event will continue for another week after Alison Van Uytvanck lost in the second round of the Samsung Open in Lugano, Switzerland. Van Uytvanck is among the 16 women who have won a singles title in 2019. She was the last of the group still playing at this week's clay-court tournaments in Lugano and Bogota, Colombia.

Soccer: Luke Shaw unwittingly helped Luis Suarez's header into the net to give Barcelona a 1-0 win over host Manchester United in the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal. In another quarterfinal first leg, Juventus and Ajax drew 1-1 in Amsterdam.

College basketball: Mark Pope is returning to BYU as the Cougars' head coach, replacing Dave Rose, who retired in March. Pope was an assistant under Rose from 2011 to 2015 before leaving to take the top job at Utah Valley. … All-America forward RJ Barrett is leaving Duke after one season to enter the NBA draft and will hire an agent.