SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — The Southern Conference and ESPN agreed on a six-year contract through the 2020-21 academic year.

The network will continue to broadcast the Southern Conference men's basketball championship. The league said Tuesday that over the course of the deal the SoCon and its 10 members will have the chance to produce nearly 2,000 live events that would be shown on ESPN3.

Part of agreement has each Southern Conference school developing production capabilities for ESPN3 by 2017. Only Furman and Mercer produced such content during the 2014-15 school year.

The league said that at least 45 league football games and 200 league basketball games will appear on ESPN3 each of the final four years of the contract.

Other league schools are Chattanooga, Citadel, East Tennessee, UNCG, Samford, VMI, Western Carolina and Wofford.