In what’s been an inevitability for more than a week, the Big Ten has officially landed agreements with multiple television networks that is worth between $7 and $8 billion.
The Big Ten (@bigten) has reached a new record-setting media rights deal worth $7 Billion over seven years.
MORE: https://t.co/vfZd2dwSGe pic.twitter.com/oO0lz66Iln
— The Portal Report (@ThePortalReport) August 18, 2022
Along with Fox, the Big Ten has agreed to deals with CBS, NBC, Peacock and FS1. The already massive dollar figure could get even bigger— as big as $10 billion— and the conference is “not done expanding,” per reports.
The conference is awaiting USC and UCLA to begin play in 2024, and rumors of more teams coming in will always be circulating.
When USC and UCLA come to the Big Ten and make it a 16-team league, the agreement’s annual payout could exceed $70 million per Big Ten school.
This TV deal is set to begin next year and will average out to more than $1 billion per year. The Big Ten’s current media rights agreement is set to expire in 2023.
After that, Fox and CBS will replace ESPN/ABC as the conference’s secondary network homes.
The plan is for for Fox, CBS and NBC to have a triple header. Fox will have the noon game, keeping the “big noon Saturday” tradition that’s become a staple in recent years alive. CBS, the soon-to-be former home of the SEC, will have the 3:30 game, and NBC will have the prime time slot.
When the Big Ten begins playing on CBS and NBC, it will mark the first time since 1982 that Big Ten games won’t be on ESPN and the first time since 1966—when Joe Paterno was a rookie head coach at Penn State— that ABC won’t carry any conference games.
In a release Thursday morning, conference commissioner Kevin Warren said these agreements are more than just “dollars and deals.”
“They are a mechanism to provide stability and maximum exposure for our student athletes, member institutions and partners these uncertain times in college athletics,” Warren said.