A lot of attention will be on the Ohio State Buckeyes’ Big Ten clash with the Penn State Nittany Lions this coming Saturday. Penn State, ranked No. 3 in last week’s AP poll, is now 7-0 following a 28-13 road win against the Wisconsin Badgers Saturday, while Ohio State (No. 4 there) improved to 6-1 with a 21-17 home win over Nebraska. That sets up a big showdown in Happy Valley, and both ESPN’s College GameDay and Fox’sย Big Noon Kickoff will be on hand for it ahead of the game (a noon ET kickoff on Fox):
HAPPY VALLEY WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT SATURDAY ๐
Big Noon Kickoff is bringing the party to Happy Valley ahead of @PennStateFball‘s big-time matchup with @OhioStateFB ๐ฅ๐ pic.twitter.com/HjJfII0ggg
โ Big Noon Kickoff (@BNKonFOX) October 26, 2024
WE’RE HEADED TO HAPPY VALLEY ๐
See you soon for Ohio State-Penn State ๐ฟ pic.twitter.com/8YCpcoCa66
โ College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) October 27, 2024
It’s unusual, but not unprecedented, for those pregame shows to be at the same location. Amongst the examples of that, both programs were in Ann Arbor for Texas-Michigan this September, and both were at Ohio State-Michigan last November and Colorado-Colorado State last September. There are obviously some challenges for both the host schools and the various networks in having multiple pregame shows (especially from competing networks; it’s simpler if there’s a combination of ESPN’s show and SEC Network’s one or Fox’s and Big Ten Network’s (majority-owned by Fox)) on the same campus. But it seems to have worked out okay to date.
A notable part ofย GameDay‘s decision to go to this game is how this lives up what host Rece Davis said in 2022, where he said he thought they would still go to Big Ten sites despite not having rights to the conference’s games (which are now with Fox, CBS, and NBC) from 2024 on. That was significant to hear, but many things are said and not backed up (and sometimes, changes come from people well above the on-air hosts, and Davis made it clear those were his opinions rather than ESPN policy).
But so far in 2024,ย GameDay has gone to two all-Big Ten matchups (Ohio State-Oregon in Week 7, Washington-Indiana this week), plus the non-conference game between the SEC’s Texas and the Big Ten’s Michigan, and now they have a third all-Big Ten contest ahead. So that certainly suggests they’re living up to their plan to focus on relevant games and locations, not just ones that bolster what their company is airing. (There is sometimes corporate synergy in guest pickers, but that’s not always the case either.)
Meanwhile,ย Big Noon Kickoff has almost always aired from a game broadcast on Fox. (The exceptions are the aforementioned Colorado-Colorado State game last year, which was on ESPN, and a USC-Notre Dame game last year broadcast by NBC.) They have moved away from it always being at the location of the noon game, but it still often is. And that speaks to the different strategies between Big Noon and GameDay: as AA’s Drew Lerner wrote recently, “One serves as a promotional vehicle for a network, and the other serves as a comprehensive pregame show for an entire sport.” But, sometimes those sportwide and network promotion approaches intersect at the same location, and that will again be the case this Saturday.
[Big Noon Kickoff and College GameDay on X]