Fox reportedly nearing deal to acquire 2026 Big Ten Championship game from NBC

NBC has seemingly found a dance partner in its quest to offload the 2026 Big Ten Championship game.

For nearly five months, NBC has been looking to sublicense the upcoming Big Ten Championship game, the only time during its seven-year agreement it has rights to air the conference’s title game. Now, it appears the game is headed to Fox.

According to a report by Joe Flint in The Wall Street Journal, NBC will sell the game to Fox for between $45 and $55 million. Previous reports indicated that NBC was courting streamers including Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video for a price tag of around $70 million. NBC will also receive additional regular-season inventory as part of the deal.

Fox is near a deal to acquire the rights to the 2026 Big Ten championship game from NBC for between $45 million and $55 million. NBC had subleased the game from Fox and is now essentially selling it back.

— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) April 7, 2026

UPDATE: As part of Fox’s expected deal to acquire the rights to the 2026 Big Ten championship game from NBC for between $45 million and $55 million, NBC will get additional regular-season games.

— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) April 7, 2026

What makes this situation unique is Fox’s de facto ownership over Big Ten media rights. Fox owns a majority stake in the Big Ten Network, and the Big Ten Network holds licensing rights for the conference’s media inventory, rather than the conference itself, into the 2030s. That means the conference’s set of media deals with CBS and NBC that began in 2023 were, in essence, sublicenses from Fox.

At the end of 2025, when NBC was pitching the Big Ten title game to streamers, Fox took issue with the plan. And because the network would need to bless any sublicense from NBC, NBC’s plan was essentially dead on arrival.

With the news, Fox will now hold rights to the Big Ten Championship game in five of the seven years covered by the current set of contracts. CBS holds the other two, with one of those having come in 2024.

While NBC did not get its asking price of $70 million for the game, the $45-55 million it will reportedly receive should still help the network offset some of its other media rights spend on the margins. The network’s new NBA rights, in particular, have resulted in significant losses so far for its streaming service Peacock.

Having just one Big Ten title game over seven years likely didn’t move the needle for NBC’s distribution agreements either, making the upcoming game a prime candidate for a sublicense. However, given Fox’s status as the arbiter of Big Ten rights, there was really only one potential buyer all along.