Large Contract, Many Bullet Points
As was rumored for weeks, the Big Ten has signed a landmark new rights deal with FOX, CBS, and NBC. Let's break out the bullets.
Money. The full deal takes a little bit to kick in, and the numbers are somewhat fuzzy because some people appear to be talking about just the money coming from the three networks mentioned above and some people are including CFP, NCAA tournament, and other rights. This is the discrepancy between 75 million (deal-related money) and 100 million (expected per-school conference distribution in a few years).
This is a lot of money. Please do not accept any requests for understanding when and if the school serves up another nonconference schedule like this one.
Oh God, the commercials. There was a time way back in the long ago when this site was enthused about exploding rights fees. It's hard to remember why, but it was probably some combination of tribalism and hilariously naïve beliefs that some of this money would result in positive changes for anyone other than the people drawing salaries from the athletic department.
After years of bludgeoning in the courts of public opinion and, you know, actual courts, the NCAA has budged on some things—cost of living stipends, free food—but these athlete-supporting changes are peripheral. The money is still going to the coaching/administrator class. I see no reason that would change, so the main takeaway here for people who watch the sports is to prepare for an even heavier inundation of ads. I would expect the powers that be to push for more NFL style rules to reduce the number of plays, literally replacing football with ads.
The windows. The way the deal is structured takes a lot of uncertainty out of scheduling. FOX has a noon game, CBS has a 3:30 game, and NBC has an 8:00 game. Big Noon has been a ratings success, so they're going to three blades. I don't speak MBA but this does seem plausible:
“The Big Ten is going to be on three major television networks from noon until 11 o’clock at night every Saturday — that is unprecedented,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus told The Athletic. “That’s never happened before. The way that each of the three broadcast partners are going to feed into each other and cross-promote each other throughout the day is going to be very beneficial for all.”
Notably there is no mention of #BigTenAfterDark. It's possible we'll see some West Coast games start at 11, but I imagine that would be a distant possibility indeed. UCLA-USC is going to be too pretty to put in the late night spot and every other conference game would be throwing away central and eastern time viewership.
That's how they get you. It's 2022 so any new media deal is going to come with an attempt to force you to sign up for a streaming service. (FWIW, Frank The Tank points out that there's no way out of this for SEC fans, who are now obligated to sign up for ESPN+. )
This one:
Probably the part that Illini fans will care about the most:
— Robert Rosenthal (@ALionEye) August 18, 2022
Starting in 2024, 47 Big Ten basketball games (32 conference, 15 non-conference) will be on Peacock. https://t.co/jLgp94VNvY
Michigan will have basketball games on Peacock annually. There will also be eight football games; no doubt Peacock will endeavor to hit every team in the conference ASAP. They could hypothetically do it every year if they get lucky. At least it has Frasier on it?
One other potential silver lining of Peacock. It's another outlet that non-revenue sports can use:
“…over the lifetime of the deal, we will work with the Big Ten on Olympic sports that make sense for them and for us on Peacock.”
I'm a little skeptical that we're going to see significant numbers of Big Ten sports on Peacock, but you know me so what I am about to say is that Peacock's production of Notre Dame hockey is truly impressive and if they start streaming hockey games at Penn State not produced by students with malfunctioning inner ears I will be delighted. BTN is always going to be the main place to go for those things, but there are a lot of things with a potential audience (wrestling, softball, gymnastics, hockey) that could get better coverage as a result of the deal.
The money grabs have evolved. When the Big Ten added Maryland and Rutgers it was to dig into the pockets of old ladies in Yonkers who couldn't care less about college football. Now it's going into actual fans' pockets to get them to sign up for a streaming service. This is fairer, but more annoying to me personally.
more soon? [Bryan Fuller]
Wither Notre Dame? Brett McMurphy's reporting on this touches on further Big Ten expansion:
The contract includes an escalator clause, meaning the deal could approach nearly $10 billion if the Big Ten’s membership increases, network sources said. Even after adding USC and UCLA, the Big Ten “is not done” expanding, sources told Action Network.
Last month, Action Network reported the Big Ten would expand beyond 16 schools and was targeting Notre Dame, along with Oregon, Washington, Stanford and Cal from the Pac-12. Those plans have not changed, sources said this week.
The Sports Business Journal speculates that ND could fetch 60-75 million when their contract is up in 2025, but the way this is worded is pretty confusing:
Sources say the school should expect around $60 million per year from a new contract -- though it’s hard to predict how the media business will look three years from now.
There had been speculation that Notre Dame could command a rights fee upward of $75 million per year when it renegotiates its new contract. That’s because it fills its schedule with games -- like its long-standing rivalry with Navy -- that traditionally bring in lower ratings.
I don't get why lower-rated games against Navy would be associated with the higher number. I imagine that has to mean "ND's schedule sucks and we don't want to pay for those games." FWIW, it seems like the 75 million number is a target that's coming from ND and not a projection from an industry insider.
One way to fix that schedule is with more Big Ten games, which are in the offing. One Big Ten school in particular:
…its association with NBC -- and NBC’s new association with the Big Ten -- make it likely that the Fighting Irish would add more Big Ten games to its schedule.
In other words, expect a return of Notre Dame’s rivalry with Michigan before 2033, which is when they are next scheduled to meet.
ND's viewership numbers collapsed this year because there was not a showdown against #1 Clemson that went to double OT on the schedule; their best game was their loss to Cincinnati, which only drew 3.8 million viewers. This is bad. Wisconsin/Minnesota drew 5 million; Nebraska/Wisconsin drew 3.5; Purdue-Iowa drew 3.5.
Note that the Big Ten's media deal should mean that ND never has a home night game again: NBC will be broadcasting an 8 PM Big Ten game weekly. I'm not sure that makes a big difference, but it is an interesting side effect.
Product: worse? This is probably a blogger-exclusive complaint, but having one place to go for game replays was convenient. Having games split over two or more streaming services is going to make organizing libraries more of a pain.
Close to perfection. Please someone make a version of this where the only football teams to appear are Rutgers, Maryland, Nebraska, and Northwestern. TIA.
Hello, @B1Gfootball.
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) August 18, 2022
Hit the music. pic.twitter.com/PbMHPql1Cz
Grimace dot emoji. I have not partaken of many Ohio State games in recent years for the same reasons the condemned don't watch axe sharpenings, so maybe this won't affect me much. But just imagining this makes my skin crawl:
thinking of how mad all my friends from big ten schools get listening to gary talk about alabama and then thinking of how he's gonna start doing that with ohio state
— Bill DiFilippo (@billdifilippo) August 18, 2022
Gross.
What about The Game? There's a "draft selection mosaic" for the networks, per Kevin Warren, so they'll rotate picks. Adam Rittenberg reports that you should still expect Michigan-OSU on FOX "pretty much every year." Richard Deitsch has some more detail:
Based on my understanding, Fox will get the No. 1 overall football pick each year, and that pick is for a week rather than for a game (so Fox’s top pick will undoubtedly always be for Michigan-Ohio State week).
I can get behind Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt doing The Game at noon for the next seven years.
What about the Big Ten/ACC challenge? There's been speculation that the challenge—an ESPN-driven event—will bite the dust in the new landscape. Kevin Warren's saying there's a chance, though:
"Life is long. They're professionals. Inherent in our scheduling we're going to play schools from the ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12. We still have to address the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. … ESPN is such a prominent partner in college athletics. We'll always have a partnership with them."
Hopefully they can preserve it.
Finally. Zach Shaw:
Same headline energy pic.twitter.com/ewiHkFf4QC
— Zach Shaw (@_ZachShaw) August 18, 2022
August 18th, 2022 at 11:34 PM ^
That's my setup, the only thing I pay extra for is HBO Max. And my AMEX pays for the $5 Peacock Plus (no ad) option, so I get the better version than Xfinity gives me for free.
August 18th, 2022 at 3:27 PM ^
So while ND has been out there saying it's a great time to be independent, they would actually make more money by being part of the BigTen and partaking in the spoils? That's interesting. I hope we don't take them though they're annoying as shit.
August 18th, 2022 at 3:43 PM ^
"Wither Notre Dame."
Niiiiice. Very clever.
(And in personal experience only yesterday with "whi"/"wi," I got slammed by a bozo who thinks the phrase is "To whit, your ...)
August 18th, 2022 at 3:46 PM ^
I wonder how involved Warde has been in all of this (expansion, tv deal, etc). Either way, the Michigan athletic brand is the strongest its ever been.
August 18th, 2022 at 3:47 PM ^
Brian. Keep it comin' brother!
August 18th, 2022 at 3:48 PM ^
I love watching live sports and great athletes perform. When paired with competent announcers, it's great entertainment while learning about a new sport. A great example of this was the Olympic channel, which had high production quality for sports such as downhill and cross country skiing and the sliding disciplines of luge, bobsled, etc.
I hope this new TV deal finds a way to bring this production quality to the non-revenue sports, and exposes many more of the contests on the streaming channels. It would make me feel a lot better about paying for a streaming service
August 18th, 2022 at 3:58 PM ^
Agreed. The one potential positive of NBC is if they cover olympic sports with half the talent they do the olympics, that's a huge step up from BTN (and a potential money saver when FB season's over).
Question: are olympic sports everything other than football or basketball? IE - baseball/softball are not in the 2024 olympics, are they under the olympic sports umbrella?
August 18th, 2022 at 4:01 PM ^
I just can't imagine watching a game live where there are more commercials and stoppages than there are already. I know there will be more with this new deal, but I am already dreading even attempting to watch a game that won't be played for another year.
Maybe this will be the breaking point. I watch way less than I used to. When I watch now, it is almost always an hour or so behind. You still catch up quick with all of the stops. I guess I will prob need to wait 2 hours now to make it bearable, but at that point, I can just check the score and go about my day.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:06 PM ^
Not looking forward to the CBS football music. Headache fuel.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:29 PM ^
It's actually my favorite one of the current ones. The old ESPN one was good, from like 10 years ago
August 18th, 2022 at 6:41 PM ^
This is the best theme music in college football history (at 10:50):
August 19th, 2022 at 4:13 AM ^
The CBS football music is the same music they used when they covered the Big Ten the first time in the 1980s. They have been consistent.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:10 PM ^
Dolla Dolla Bills Ya'll
August 18th, 2022 at 4:11 PM ^
Draft selection mosaic... I mean, for the love of god, saying stuff like that doesn't make you sound smarter, it makes you sound like a doucher. Just say "we have a system and rotation for which network gets first choice of games."
August 18th, 2022 at 4:13 PM ^
I took the ND portion to mean: ND thinks they are worth $75M a year but due to them playing Navy, the network execs are saying today they would pay $60M a year.
Combine that quote with the ratings you cite, and it seems like the argument is basically that ND isn't the draw that everyone is saying they are. Basically the ND hype has been way overblown.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:25 PM ^
ND will be playing at the same time as the top game in the SEC on ABC/ESPN. So they'll be going up against Alabama, UGA or whatever the big game with CFP implications are.
That also means playing against the #2 or #3 game in the B1G every week. So they're likely going up opposite Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State or USC most weeks. Games that even if they don't have CFP implications have giant alumni/fanbases to tune in and watch over a non-conference game between ND and BYU.
And don't forget that the Big 12/Pac 12 will also need a dance partner (likely ESPN). And if Apple TV or Amazon gets involved with those conferences, then whose to say casual fans won't bypass Peacock on their SmartTV in favor of those platforms.
Quite simply, they need a conference.
August 19th, 2022 at 10:57 AM ^
I didn't even read the meat of the post but the fact that ND thinks it's so special and still a top-level draw is pretty ridiculous. Do their numbers/ratings back this up? To me it just seems like they're kind of just another big-time program. They're basically Oregon or Penn State.
August 19th, 2022 at 1:49 PM ^
I love that Rutgers will be making more TV money than ND in a couple years. But ND still thinks it's better to be independent..
August 18th, 2022 at 4:13 PM ^
So we are quite valuable it seems. "We" being college football and basketball fans who watch BIG10 games on TV. Remember that the only value we have to the BIG10 is that our attention can be sold to advertisers for billions of dollars so that BIG10 execs can make millions and BIG10 schools can make hundreds of millions. Otherwise, the BIG doesn't really give a rat's ass about us. Nor do the member schools of the BIG10. We and the players are being sold. It has always been this way to some extent but now it just seems like college football is completely commercial - just another entertainment option where the owners (oops, I meant schools) try to play on your nostalgia or genuine love for your university to line their pockets. I'm almost to the point where I'd rather forget college sports completely.
August 19th, 2022 at 4:17 AM ^
Yes, we are not the customer in all of this. We are the product.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:20 PM ^
so the main takeaway here for people who watch the sports is to prepare for an even heavier inundation of ads. I would expect the powers that be to push for more NFL style rules to reduce the number of plays, literally replacing football with ads.
i am always shocked at how much money is in advertising. they are annoying and make me want to NEVER to buy your product. i am more likely to buy things i have never seen an ad for, and ONLY buy that brand in perpetuity, solely out of spite for ads of their competitors. i mean, i guess ads work on a lot of people or else they wouldn't do it.
also, I already have yttv, neflix and hulu. if a game isn't on a channel available, then i guess i am not watching that game. i think all michigan football games will be on network tv or b1g. Too big a draw to have "only available by streaming on peacock", but i'll likely miss a bunch of basketball games.
August 18th, 2022 at 9:14 PM ^
Yeah. I mean, I like ad-supported free content (though I doubt I'd actually pay for any of it if it went to a subscription model), but who actually even pays attention to ads? I have no idea how ads are even remotely profitable for the companies paying for them...
August 19th, 2022 at 1:39 AM ^
I'm with you. Make an add that I despise I'll go out of my way to avoid and potentially never buy/consume your product. I'll never eat Jersey Mike's due to some horrid commercials years ago (they still suck and somehow get under my skin).
Plenty of dum dums (/s) out there though who's brains absorb all of that garbage and that's where paying all that money for advertising comes in....Ope hold that thought I need to order a Dominoes, my belly is craving some half-assed at best 'za instead of much better local establishments deep dish.
August 19th, 2022 at 1:07 PM ^
Agreed on the advertising. I keep expecting that bubble to pop when the companies paying for that advertising realize no one actually watches commercials or read the side-bar advertising. I even skip Google's "ad" marked search results automatically.
Then the Super Bowl comes along and there are entire threads devoted to those advertisements and monthly people complain here about those side-bar advertisements and I realize there are plenty of people those adverts must reach, unfortunately.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:25 PM ^
Please think of other ways to generate ad revenue besides commercial breaks.
August 18th, 2022 at 6:06 PM ^
We already tried the noodle in front of the stadium. What else can we do?
August 18th, 2022 at 8:41 PM ^
Maybe like soccer where they split screen an ad and the field?
August 18th, 2022 at 10:50 PM ^
Golf does that too now. Although golf still does have some real commercial breaks, they've been starting to mix in the split screen with advertising and golf being shown at the same time.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:27 PM ^
But wait, I thought all the ads were my (the fans) fault for watching my team play on Saturdays. Are you now telling me that this kind of stuff gets negotiated in decade long many Billions of dollars deals as a conference and my viewing habits have really no bearing on the number of ads I have to suffer through! Truly astounding.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:27 PM ^
Have absolutely zero interest in UM scheduling ND.
August 18th, 2022 at 6:07 PM ^
I'm fine with a league game.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:28 PM ^
The notion that ND will be a great lead-in for the night B1G game is silly. If Packers-Cowboys is on Fox at 4:15PM, I'm not going to suffer through Lions-Bears at 1PM unless I am a Lions or Bears fan. I might watch the last few minutes so I don't miss the start of the 4:15 game, but that would be the main reason.
If ND is on opposite OSU or MSU, I'll watch them because it more directly affects my team. I'll even watch the SEC game for a better brand of football that affects the CFP race.
Call me crazy (but not Shirley), but I think that argument is a smokescreen and they're planning on joining the B1G once they figure a way out of their deal with the ACC.
August 19th, 2022 at 1:12 PM ^
Call me crazy (but not Shirley), but I think that argument is a smokescreen and they're planning on joining the B1G once they figure a way out of their deal with the ACC.
There is definitely something going on here. To casually mention going to 20 teams when the only viable expansion candidates are all in the ACC reeks of something going on behind the scenes.
Where there is money to be made, contracts are about as good as the paper they are printed on. I've seen that a 1000 times at work.
August 18th, 2022 at 4:48 PM ^
B1G UTL every Saturday!
August 18th, 2022 at 5:30 PM ^
Per Brian's request (not my video):
— Dewey Lipa (@LipaDewey) August 18, 2022
August 18th, 2022 at 5:59 PM ^
Not that hard on the B1G-ACC challenge. ACC host games - ESPN, B1G host games - Not ESPN.
August 18th, 2022 at 6:01 PM ^
Any chance we'll be spared any more Dr. Pepper commercials? No? DANG!
August 18th, 2022 at 7:48 PM ^
the organizers already count on 4 hours for Fox games, if they push beyond that, good luck getting people to watch games in person or on TV for that matter.
August 18th, 2022 at 8:03 PM ^
It’s the double edged sword.
We love more college football.
We hate the commercials that bring more college football to us.
Suffer through them live, or DVR the game and buzz through the breaks.
🤷♂️
August 18th, 2022 at 9:46 PM ^
More TV timeouts...😪 Games will be 4 hours long...
August 18th, 2022 at 9:56 PM ^
Gus and Joel, yeah… but GD the freakin’ commercials. Turrible.
August 19th, 2022 at 12:38 AM ^
I think Gary Danielson will glow more about Michigan than Ohio St. Gary loves old school smashmouth football and Michigan does that a lot more than Ohio St.
August 19th, 2022 at 3:28 AM ^
Plus, we might start to actually earn the right to be slobbered on.
He's going to pick somebody, that's what he does. Might as well be us.
August 19th, 2022 at 3:26 AM ^
the Big Ten would expand beyond 16 schools and was targeting Notre Dame, along with Oregon, Washington, Stanford and Cal from the Pac-12
It is insane and completely unsustainable for USC and UCLA to be the only remote West Coast / Pacific Time Zone islands in the Big Ten, especially for sports other than football that have more than one game per week.
Methinks that Oregon, Washington, Stanford and Cal were part of the enticement to get USC and UCLA in the Big Ten . . . the plan all along was to add them to create essentially a "Big Ten West division" that can play a large number of its games among itself.
This is the Big Ten - Pac 12 merger that people speculated on previously, but with a corporate / university / television network greed twist . . . just cherry pick the top Pac 12 teams. Why feed the mouths of Oregon State, Washington State, et al?
August 19th, 2022 at 4:39 AM ^
Caring so much about this seems exasperating. If I can't find it easily legally im just gonna pirate the streams. The tv channels add just about zero value to my viewing experience, all i need is a camera somewhere in the stadium pointed at the field. Everything else, the announcers the graphics whatever is just totally valueless to me, no way in hell im jumping through a bunch of hoops to get peppered with ads everytime the ball is downned.
August 19th, 2022 at 8:41 AM ^
Recognizing that Brian's default prism through which to view any topic is class warfare ("rich people are rich! they all make too much money!"), the idea that the only tangible result of increasing broadcasting dollars (and advertising time during games) is to pay the AD and coaches more money is not based in fact.
Yes, the athletic staff salaries have gone up a LOT, but so has investment into non-revenue athlete support, and especially facilities. Have you seen the field hockey field? Or the wrestling building? Academic support staff numbers have grown exponentially for ALL sports, not to mention medical staff, mental health resources, nutritional staff and resources for ALL student-athletes, etc. Plus the incredible expansions and modernizations of Michigan Stadium and Crisler Center are a direct result, which we all enjoy, whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not as we wring our hands about the AD's contract. If Michigan evern gets their NIL shit together, the money cannon will also directly benefit the product on the field as well, which, let's be honest, is what 99.9% of us really care about anyway. Oh and then the "poor downtrodden victimized football peasants" will get their deserved share of the riches too.
August 19th, 2022 at 10:30 AM ^
Peacock has MacGruber though!
August 19th, 2022 at 12:08 PM ^
When I moved out of state in 1995 I had to buy DirecTV and then pay hundreds of dollars a year to get ESPN GamePass and hope that the Michigan game was on it. Even if it was, the quality was usually bad and the announcers were terrible. And then if you wanted basketball it was another few hundred dollars.
That doesn't even talk about how DirecTV satellite dishes were banned at my apartment complex so I had to attach the dish to a plywood square and keep it hidden so management didn't notice. I had marks on my patio so I knew where to set it up.
$5 a month is about one Starbucks coffee. We will survive.
August 19th, 2022 at 4:35 PM ^
So these numbers tell me pretty much any booster cutting a check to the athletic department is a fool.
August 19th, 2022 at 4:35 PM ^
So these numbers tell me pretty much any booster cutting a check to the athletic department is a fool.
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