INDIANAPOLIS — When it comes to Big Ten football on television this fall, it’s going to take some time to get used to the changes.
For the first time since 1986, Big Ten home games will appear on CBS, and the conference doesn’t have a contract with ABC or ESPN. It also marks the first time the Big Ten has linked up with NBC and a streaming network — NBC’s Peacock — for exclusive games.
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There are the old standbys like Fox, FS1 and BTN, and the 2023 season is transitional. CBS is in the final year of its contract with the SEC and will air seven Big Ten games this fall before jumping to 15 beginning in 2024. CBS and NBC will have a few experimental windows this fall before they settle into their consistent time frames in 2024. That year also coincides with USC and UCLA joining a division-less Big Ten.
“This first year is kind of an element unto itself,” said Kerry Kenny, the Big Ten’s chief operating officer who handles television and football scheduling.
Let’s take a look 10 big topics involving Big Ten television in 2023 and beyond.
Classic and new additions
With conferences eyeing partnerships with nontraditional networks or streaming options, the Big Ten leaned into linear. In picking up CBS and NBC, the conference opted for maximum and recognizable exposure over continuing a long-standing relationship with ABC/ESPN or perhaps more revenue to partner with Amazon Prime.
Big Ten football will stretch across three time windows on three major networks. Fox regularly will kick off the action with its Big Noon broadcast. In 2024, CBS will replace its midday SEC package with a Big Ten game at 3:30 p.m. ET. NBC debuts its “Big Ten Saturday Night” with prime-time games starting at 7:30 p.m. ET this fall.
In addition to NBC’s package, which consists of 15 games mostly in prime time, the network’s Peacock streaming-only service will show nine games this fall. In the first three weeks, Peacock secured major brands with Michigan (against East Carolina) and Penn State (against Delaware) plus Washington at Michigan State in Week 3. The combination of showing games on both platforms was critical, said Jon Miller, the president of partnerships and acquisitions for NBC Sports.
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“It was very important to us,” Miller said. “It was a commitment that we made to the Big Ten that the only other college football that we were even interested in acquiring was the Big Ten to marry up with Notre Dame. NBC is going to be 100 years old in 2025, and this is the first college football conference relationship they’ve ever had.”
CBS will fit games where it can this year before slotting the Big Ten into the 3:3o p.m. ET window in 2024. In 2023, that includes a Sunday afternoon game on Labor Day weekend, a prime-time kickoff in week four, a noon Black Friday contest, two Saturday games at noon and only two at midday.
“What we did with the Big Ten, we focused on creating a side-by-side scenario where the open windows that we had we could fill with Big Ten games can exist side-by-side with the commitments we have to the SEC,” said Dan Weinberg, executive vice president of programming for CBS Sports. “It worked out beautiful.”
USC and UCLA will play one more season in the Pac-12 before joining the Big Ten in 2024. (Jordon Kelly / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The draft
Each year, the Big Ten’s primary media partners engage in a draft used for game selection. Fox holds the No. 1 pick and Ohio State-Michigan always earns the top spot. From there, the selection order gets blurry as to which networks choose in what spots.
“For this first year, it’s very similar to what our process has typically been in the past with multiple networks and rotating picks, where you have the networks selecting picks in weeks they’re not selecting actual games,” Kenny said. “For Fox and NBC, it was a little bit more of that traditional, ‘Hey, we may want to broadcast games in these weeks. We may want FS1 games in these weeks. We may want, in NBC’s case, Peacock games in these weeks.’”
The networks with the top pick in those weeks can designate their game right away, which Fox has done with Ohio State at Michigan on Nov. 25 and Michigan at Penn State on Nov. 11. Or in other weeks, the top network can pick its game using a six- or 12-day selection period and the other networks choose in some order afterward. As to how often NBC and CBS will get the top pick for a weekend, Miller said, “Probably about a third.”
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“This year is what they call it stub year because CBS is still involved with their SEC package,” Miller said. “We’ve only announced, I believe, five of our matchups so far. Some are locked in.”
Outside of the first three weekends, NBC’s prime-time slate includes Michigan State at Ohio State on Nov. 11 and Penn State vs. Michigan State in Detroit on Black Friday. Some of the other weekly potential matchups were leaked to Action Network, but Kenny said those games are subject to the six- and 12-day window.
“We definitely understand the excitement from some of our partners, especially our new partners to be involved in Big Ten football,” Kenny said. “But in terms of where things stand for those weeks, whether or not games have been confirmed, from a time standpoint, from a network perspective, that’s all subject to that in-season selection process.
“Nothing is confirmed until it’s released by the conference during that part of the season and all of our networks.”
2024
With USC and UCLA aboard in 2024 and CBS clear of its SEC contract, the television process will develop a routine.
“The goal is to keep as much consistency with Fox at noon and CBS at 3:30 and NBC in prime time,” Kenny said. “That really helps them from a sales perspective. It really helps them from an overall branding of the day, making it easy for our fans to seamlessly go from that early part of the day to the late part starting with the pregame shows in the morning on Fox and then going all the way to Saturday Night Live after the prime time game on NBC.”
There may be a few alterations, such as NBC shifting two Notre Dame games into prime time. That could lead to a time flip between NBC and Fox. In addition, the Big Ten has no plans to air a USC or UCLA home game at 9 a.m. PT on Big Noon Kickoff. But the 2024 inventory ranges from traditional rivalry games to USC’s matchups with Penn State, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin to a wider variety of games without a divisional structure.
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“The depth that the league already has, plus what will be added with USC and UCLA, is really helpful in that regard,” Weinberg said. “You don’t have to necessarily have the top pick in any given week to potentially have an incredibly meaningful and significant game and a great atmosphere that has national championship implications. That’s the beauty of what we have here.”
In addition, the 2024 and 2025 schedules consist of 14 weeks, instead of 13, which could help spread the league’s inventory.
Labor Day weekend and Black Friday
The Big Ten has branched out on holiday weekends, particularly on Labor Day weekend. Games will appear over four days, starting with Fox airing Nebraska at Minnesota on Thursday night and concluding with Northwestern at Rutgers on CBS that Sunday.
“There may be some opportunities in the future on Labor Day Sunday with NBC in their final week before they start their Sunday Night Football package with the NFL, to really take advantage of that real estate as well,” Kenny said.
Beginning this fall, the league will broadcast two Black Friday matchups. The traditional Iowa-Nebraska game kicks off at noon ET on CBS, while Michigan State-Penn State in Detroit at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC. While Nebraska-Iowa likely will remain a Black Friday staple, the other matchup could change annually.
CBS also will show an SEC game (Missouri at Arkansas) immediately following the Iowa-Nebraska game. Weinberg considers the Whiteout game on Sept. 23 featuring Iowa at Penn State as “a signature moment for us this year.”
The only Big Ten game NBC airs on Thanksgiving weekend this year is on Black Friday. That will change in 2024.
“What’s really exciting is that we’ll have a Thursday night NFL game, we’ll have a Black Friday game, we’ll now have a Big Ten Saturday night game, and then we’ll have a Sunday night NFL game,” Miller said. “We’ll have four nights in a row of blockbuster football on NBC.”
November nights
A semi-sticking point between the Big Ten office and its membership was NBC’s night package in November. The Big Ten’s previous contract called for night games through only the first weekend in November. Afterward, both participants were required to agree to prime-time requests. That’s no longer the case.
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Many athletic directors were upset with the package or felt as if they weren’t consulted. To alleviate the situation, Ohio State agreed to host Michigan State on Nov. 11, and the Nov. 24 Michigan State-Penn State game was moved to Detroit’s Ford Field.
“In any partnership, with TV or other external partners, we understand that we need to be collaborative, we need to be creative,” Kenny said. “I think you’re going to see that through the next seven years, where we’re really going to want to work with NBC to make sure that their broadcast package is as good as all of our other partners at noon and at 3:30 and other times throughout our season. And our schools understand that as well.”
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Ohio State-Michigan future
At Big Ten media days, Ohio State coach Ryan Day suggested moving the annual Ohio State-Michigan game off the final weekend. With divisional play ending after 2023, the prominent rivalry could have a rematch the following week in the Big Ten championship game. With an expanded College Football Playoff, the teams could meet for a third time in a season.
Any movement in ‘The Game” could meet resistance from Fox. Ohio State-Michigan rates as the most viewed regular-season game each year with more than 17 million viewers last season and nearly 16 million in 2021. A move to late October or early November could impact those ratings.
“From a conference perspective is, we work as a membership service organization,” Kenny said. “If Gene (Smith, Ohio State athletic director) and Warde (Manuel at Michigan) were ever to come to us and say, ‘Hey, we want to have a discussion about this,’ then we’ll obviously happily be a part of that discussion with them to see what they’d ask us to consider from a television perspective. But at this point in time, that hasn’t been a discussion that’s been brought up in that formal way with our office and in the context of scheduling or TV.”
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USC-Notre Dame
No cross-country rivalry has persevered quite like USC-Notre Dame. When those teams play in South Bend, the game is staged in October. When it’s in Los Angeles, it’s held on Thanksgiving weekend.
In 2024, it’s scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend, and USC and the conference have held discussions about the rivalry. But there are some scheduling and television hurdles to keep that series on its traditional rotation.
“There’s a lot of different pathways on the table of how to make sure that that game can continue if both schools plan on continuing that game,” Kenny said, “but also be creative in how we integrate that into our overall scheduling philosophy with the Big Ten.”
Week Zero
The Big Ten previously incorporated Week Zero matchups in 2021 and 2022 with solid viewership. Last year’s game in Ireland featuring Northwestern and Nebraska garnered more than 4.4 million viewers.
There is interest in changing NCAA regulations around Week Zero to allow for more future matchups. Currently, Week Zero must include an international location, a game against Hawaii or an FCS opponent matchup.
“We definitely have that tagged as an item that we’ll need to evaluate if it does present itself as something that looks like it’s going to be adopted across all of the conferences here and in the NCAA that are playing college football at our level,” Kenny said. “I think we’d be supportive of identifying ways to positively impact our broadcast partners if we were to move in that direction.”
Theme music
In what has pained many SEC fans, the CBS college football theme won’t follow the conference to ESPN and will stay with CBS. Although it has become synonymous with the SEC, the music also airs on intro and outro bumpers for Army-Navy, the Sun Bowl and other college football games.
NBC also has unveiled a new theme performed by Fall Out Boy called “Here Comes Saturday Night.”
“We have new music that’s been created just for ‘Big Ten Saturday night,’” Miller said. “It’s a pretty cool, very catchy tune that will be synonymous with ‘Big Ten Saturday night.’”
Fox also has a popular opening theme.
Championships
All three linear networks will carry the Big Ten championship game at least once through 2029. Fox airs it in the odd years — 2023, 2025, 2027 and 2029. CBS gets the championship in 2024 and 2028, while NBC broadcasts it in 2026.
“We love crowning champions on CBS Sports,” Weinberg said. “That’s what we do. We do big events, we do champions. It was a very, very important thing for us to be part of the rotation for the Big Ten championship game.”
“That comes at a great, great time for us,” Miller said. “We have the 2026 Super Bowl, and we’ll have the 2026 Big Ten championship. That year is going to be a big year for us because we’ll also have the Winter Olympics from Milan.”
(Top photo of Ryan Day: James Black / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)