Starting in 2023, watching Indiana University sports on TV, or streaming the Hoosiers online, will have a completely different feel.
On Thursday, the Big Ten Conference announced a brand new media rights deal, encompassing BTN, FOX, FS1, CBS, NBC, and NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock. According to multiple reports, the deal totals over $7 billion over the course of seven years. For the first time in 40 years, ESPN will not cover Big Ten sporting events. Per the New York Times, this is the largest-ever annual deal of its kind for collegiate sports.
The Athletic reported that FOX will carry the prime package of college football contests, with the biggest game of each week continuing to kick off at noon ET. Starting in 2024, upon USC’s and UCLA’s arrival into the league, FOX will air the primary game at noon, CBS will own the 3:30 ET time slot, then NBC will broadcast the primetime game on Big Ten Saturday Night.
The NBC games will simultaneously on Peacock, NBCUniversal’s direct-to-consumer streaming service. Peacock will exclusively stream eight football games each year as well.
Each network will have at least one Big Ten Championship football game allocated to it between 2023 and 2030. According to the official announcement from the league, “BTN will maintain its strong position as the home for Big Ten fans, as the network will continue to televise a full slate of football, basketball, and Olympic sport competition throughout the entire year.
“The Big Ten Conference media rights agreements are more than just dollars and deals,” Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said. “They are a mechanism to provide stability and maximum exposure for our student-athletes, member institutions, and partners during these uncertain times in collegiate athletics.”
BUT, we now see the start of games on streaming platforms like Peacock… This is upsetting because the greedy TV networks and sports leagues want us to pay additional fees to stream games when we already pay a lot of money for live broadcast programming (Comcast, Sling, YoutubeTV, etc…)