The Big Ten conference announced Thursday one of the biggest deals in television ever for college sports. The new media rights deal has Fox, NBC and CBS airing sports from 2023 through 2029. The agreement’s cost? Roughly seven billion dollars, although specifics have not been shared. It is estimated that each year will see $1.2 billion dollars annually to the conference. Officially the agreement is from July 1, 2023, through the 2029-30 season.
Foxsports.com reported the following statements. First, from Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren:
“Today we extend our long-standing media rights partnership with FOX to ensure that our fans will be delivered exciting Big Ten football, women’s and men’s basketball, Olympic sports and creative conference storytelling across FOX, FS1 and BTN [Big Ten Network],” Warren added in the statement. “We deeply value the special relationship that our conference has with the outstanding team at FOX Sports, specifically Eric Shanks, Mark Silverman and Larry Jones, who have consistently worked to strengthen and grow the Big Ten Conference brand across the nation.”
Then, Fox Sports CEO and executive producer Eric Shanks added:
“We are proud to expand upon our long-standing partnership with the Big Ten Conference and further bolster our position as the premier rights holder of the conference,” Shanks said in a statement. “Commissioner [Kevin] Warren’s leadership and vision have resulted in the growth and recent market expansion of the Big Ten Conference. In an ever-evolving landscape, the Big Ten remains the most storied collegiate athletic conference in the country.”
Looking beyond how these two men were gushing over each other (who wouldn’t with that kind of money), what does this really mean? Let’s look at the specifics.
Who broadcasts what?
First, the new partners in television are Fox, CBS, NBC, NBCUniversal’s Peacock. The Big Ten Network (BTN) and FoxSports1 (FS1) obviously will continue.
Big Ten football will dominate the screens beginning in the fall of 2023 with the pregame show with the same cast of former players and coaches.
.@CFBONFOX IS BACK!
Some of the sport’s most exciting voices and notable names are on the call for @FOXSports this fall 🎙️Full broadcast and studio teams ➡️ https://t.co/HAIBW6xjo2 pic.twitter.com/qOlT1payet
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) August 19, 2022
Then, BIG NOON starts the day on Fox. The 3:30 game will be on CBS, and the Prime Time game will be NBC. Brady Quinn, on CBS SportsHQ with Jeremy St. Louis, made a good point that with this set up, Notre Dame could possibly join the conference and still keep some independence.
“You know, we might see for example, Notre Dame if they opt to stay independent, you might see them decide to play X amount of games versus some of those Big Ten opponents, because now you’ve got the independent deal with NBC, for example, – if that was to live on, but you get that partnership with CBS with FOX now currently, with those Big Ten media rights.” (From yahoo.com and YouTube.com in the prior link)
BTN
The BTN will continue to televise football, basketball and Olympic sport competitions all year. It will be interesting to see when UCLA and USC join the conference in 2024 because fans in Maine will see UCLA volleyball! Imagine a conference having the top three media markets in the US with Los Angeles, New York and Chicago! Unfathomable!
CBS
According to the bigten.org, CBS will continue their NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament coverage. They will also continue the Big Ten conference tournament leading to March Madness, but now the women’s conference tournament will have a home with CBS! CBS will use it’s Paramount+ streaming service to stream every basketball and football broadcast.
For football, CBS will show up to 15 regular-season games including the Black Friday game in the afternoon after Thanksgiving.
NBC
Welcome to Big Ten Saturday Night. NBC will produce 14-16 games that will run on Saturday evenings. Each game will be streamed in real time on the Peacock service. NBC’s Sunday night NFL football games are the most watched shows during this fall time slot for 11 consecutive years! ALL PRIME TIME SHOWS! (Think 60 Minutes, American Idol, All in the Family.) Saturday could propel them into even more unprecedented air!
Also, Peacock will deliver exclusive football and basketball games in both men’s and women’s competitions. The women’s content would be roughly 30 regular season conference and non-conference games!
Big Ten Championship Football Games
All three networks will get an opportunity on a rotating basis to televise these games. Fox will broadcast on the odd years. CBS receives 2024 and 2028, with the 2026 match up on NBC.
How is NIL (Name Image Likeness) impacted?
Here’s a good take from Twitter. If you need an expert on NIL and law, Dan Murphy with ESPN is outstanding.
There is no law or rule currently that stops a conference like the Big Ten from signing an NIL deal with every one of its football players and distributing a chunk of those billions to players.
Schools could still avoid an employer/employee relationship in that structure. https://t.co/URt5A3J0m1
— Dan Murphy (@DanMurphyESPN) August 19, 2022
https://twitter.com/DanMurphyESPN/status/1560625759407964160
So the expenses for the NIL contracts with all athletes, not just football, could be quite large. But currently, most NIL money is generated by a collective, which is separate from the university/college and generally run by alumni or other influential supporters. So the possibility of athletic departments losing funding from their usual donors could happen and make things a bit more interesting. But what high school athlete wouldn’t want to be seen from coast to coast?
2018-19 Expenses for Big Ten
Let’s look at the Big Ten and the last full season before the COVID-19 pandemic. The numbers here are generated from cleveland.com and will only include generated revenue, which is money generated by the departments themselves, sans student fees, government subsidies and other school sources of revenue. Note that we are using the data member institutions shared with the NCAA via the cleveland.com article. There could be other sources not listed here.
Using a simple formula of Net Generated Revenue equals all athletic revenues minus athletic expenses, we will see that not one Big Ten school generated a positive net generated revenue. (NOTE: Northwestern is a private school so they are not included in this math since they are not required to share this information with the NCAA. Also, we assume all athletic expenses are included in the NCAA’s numbers like medical staff, travel, etc.)
The Table
| Big Ten Schools | Total Expenses | Total Revenue* (sum of next 4 columns) | Ticket Sales | Contributions | Media | Royalties/Licensing | Gain or (Loss) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois | 120.2 | 87.9 | 11.8 | 24.5 | 46 | 5.6 | (32.3) |
| Indiana | 114.8 | 100.9 | 18.4 | 28.3 | 43.6 | 10.6 | (13.9) |
| Iowa | 146.3 | 118.3 | 27.1 | 35.4 | 45.1 | 10.7 | (28.0) |
| Maryland | 108.8 | 75.7 | 13.4 | 11.3 | 42.2 | 8.8 | (33.1) |
| Michigan | 191.0 | 160.6 | 53.8 | 35 | 43.6 | 28.2 | (30.4) |
| Michigan State | 135.7 | 111.5 | 28 | 23.4 | 43.6 | 16.5 | (24.2) |
| Minnesota | 129.5 | 94.1 | 19.9 | 17.8 | 43.7 | 12.7 | (35.4) |
| Nebraska | 124.1 | 114.1 | 37.1 | 6.5 | 42.6 | 27.9 | (10.0) |
| Ohio State | 220.6 | 158.0 | 59.8 | 29.7 | 45.6 | 22.9 | (62.6) |
| Penn State | 160.4 | 127.5 | 41.0 | 31.5 | 40.1 | 14.9 | (32.9) |
| Purdue | 102.0 | 87.2 | 13.1 | 23.7 | 43.6 | 6.8 | (14.8) |
| Rutgers | 103.2 | 49.2 | 10.5 | 5.6 | 27.0 | 6.1 | (54.0) |
| Wisconsin | 154.6 | 118.9 | 33.3 | 16.1 | 56.1 | 13.4 | (35.7) |
Looking at Ohio State, they would have the largest loss in generated revenue at $62.6 million. Rutgers would be second at $54.0 million. If we look at the roughly $46 million dollars in the media revenue (this includes what the conference pays out to all schools from conference bowl funds and TV money as of 2018-19), imagine what 2023-24 will look like after the first payout from the new media deal. Member schools could see this number roughly double to $92 million or more!
Expanding?
Just the influx of money generated by this new deal would entice any other school to join the Big Ten. Looking at USC and UCLA, they saw this as an opportunity with the new football championship rules being discussed. UCLA, though, had a more important reason: they are on the brink of financial emergency!
(Image courtesy of Flipboard.com)
ESPN reported the UCLA athletic program was operating at an astounding 62.5 million dollar deficit for 2021, and the loss of money from the pandemic and Under Armor opting out of an apparel deal could damage any future for all UCLA athletics!
(Image courtesy of https://trojanswire.usatoday.com/lists/usc-trojans-football-future-schedules-and-opponents/)
USC’s decision centered more on the current PAC 12 media deal, where all money for member schools get allocated equally. USC, thinking they generated more money for other programs due to their Los Angeles setting and brand image, felt they deserved more.
Ryan Abraham, a USC football reporter, was quoted in an online article:
“The more you hear about the Vanderbilts and the Purdues making more money than you [USC] are, and the equal sharing [in the Pac-12] despite having the LA market. It wore on USC.”
Notre Dame?
Which brings us back to the Fighting Irish. What they decide could ultimately determine what happens for the future of college football. Right now, they have an arrangement with the ACC for all sports save football. But they do keep open some dates for a football game with their conference.
This year they play ACC foes North Carolina, Clemson, Syracuse and Boston College. BC has the catholic ties to ND Football and has been on their schedule many times before. The most intriguing game is the USC game. When USC is playing in the Big Ten, that might entice the Irish to join the Big Ten and operate the way they do in the ACC: namely, football stays independent with conference games for most other sports.
Their NBC football contract with games at 2:30 pm would be quite a lead in to the Big Ten Saturday Night schedule. Fans can sit down with food and drink at 2:30 and not leave until 11pm.
The other athletic programs? Having their other athletic teams play closer to South Bend would be helpful in keeping with the idea of lower travel expenses than now for ACC opponents. How the California teams factor into this will be fascinating. There will probably be a lot of scheduling games where you stay in California for a week or so to get USC and UCLA games scheduled.
Kevin Warren
Being able to nail Notre Dame and their national following into the Big Ten camp would be a giant feather in Warren’s cap. He was able to work this deal quietly behind the scenes. And make no doubt, his NFL background made this deal work.
And the criticism he received in dealing with the pandemic for the conference would be forgotten. His early failings with canceling then un-canceling the football season was seen as “inept and awkward” by Omaha World-Herald’s Tom Shatel.
But this deal has even Paul Finebaum of the SEC Network saying the following:
“[Warren] deserves tremendous credit for weathering a very difficult storm where a lot of people around him had knives out for him…[now] he is having the last laugh” (“The Paul Finebaum Show,” SEC Network, 8/18).
With this new media deal, the Big Ten has changed college athletics. How it plays out for the member schools will dictate how other conferences and schools will counter this move. It’s like a game of chess, where the Big Ten has just checked the SEC and ultimately the NCAA and all the member institutions. But since there really aren’t many moves left that can top this, maybe checkmate is more accurate!
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