Reports: Fox "has deal in place" for B1G media rights worth $1B+
A massive media shakeup with billions of dollars involved is coming to college football. With the SEC leaving CBS Sports for ESPN in 2023, the Big Ten Conference has become the hottest commodity in sports broadcasting. Reports say Fox is set to maintain its relationship with B1G moving forward in a massive new deal and is assisting the B1G in selecting the other network that will get B1G media rights.
Fox Sports is the majority owner of the B1G Network and continuing their relationship with the B1G is crucial to their sports portfolio. Fox recently increased their college football coverage with their morning kickoff show and a focus on the noon timeslot. That format included the most-watched college football game last season where Ohio State vs Michigan drew 15.9M viewers. Michigan is one of the top 2 draws in college football. Along with the OSU game, Michigan on FOX had the third and fifth highest-rated games as well. The B1G Championship vs Iowa and the October 30 rivalry game against Michigan State drew 11.7M and 9.3M viewers respectively.
Fox is assisting the B1G and Commissioner Kevin Warren in deciding who the second media partner will be. According to Ourand, ESPN, CBS, and NBC have already spoken with the B1G and Fox, while Turner, Amazon, and Apple have expressed interest.
ESPN is the most dominant force in college football media as they essentially own the college football postseason. Between the College Football playoff and the vast majority of bowl games, ESPN is king. In the regular season, they have lagged behind Fox and CBS, typically carrying the second and third-tier games of the B1G and SEC conference. This drove ESPN to reach an expanded agreement with the SEC worth nearly $150M per year over two separate 10-year terms. ESPN owns the SEC Network and the Longhorn Network. With Texas and Oklahoma set to join the SEC, the deal made sense for both sides.
ESPN still has high priority in the B1G as the 3:30 PM and night game slots have been huge ratings draws as well with Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan State participating in top 20 rated games throughout the season. ESPN is expected to be ultra-competitive for the secondary B1G media rights as they hope to continue control over the media landscape of all of college football.
CBS is also an eager competitor in that bidding war and some may even call them desperate. Losing the SEC Conference is a massive hit to their portfolio. The 3:30 pm game on CBS has consistently been a top rating draw for the network. Alabama is the only program that competes with Michigan, as the SEC Championship game drew 15.3M viewers second only to the Ohio State vs Michigan game. Alabama and Auburn was the fourth game to top 10M viewers, just behind the B1G Championship.
NBC Sports is also involved. They hope to pair the B1G Network with their coverage of Notre Dame football to create weekly doubleheaders. Amazon has been increasing its presence in sports via its Prime digital platform including the exclusive rights to NFL's Thursday Night Football. Amazon hired legendary broadcaster Al Michaels to call play by play, while ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit will be the color commentator. Apple is also adding sports options to its digital platform with MLB games exclusively on Apple TV+.
The network agreements, terms, and broadcasting formats are expected to be announced by Memorial Day.
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