Perhaps lost in the shuffle of College Football Playoff chatter, an insane coaching carousel, and players entering the transfer portal, was the release of regular season schedules for the 2025 season on Wednesday.
As such, the college football television picture for next season is starting to come into focus. Fresh off the 2024 regular season, certain fan bases are certainly still sensitive over television scheduling procedures that put their team in one time slot or another too much or too little for their liking.
We at Awful Announcing are here to tell you that not much will change next season. All of the conference television partners remain the same, and there’s no indication that any networks are in a position to wildly alter their strategies in 2025.
And given that this year revealed some of the inner workings of how the TV schedules get made, it’s possible to make a few predictions as to what network and time slot some of the top games of 2025 will go to.
Specifically, this post will focus on the Big Ten which is the conference that features the most high-profile horse trading between networks. From this past season, we now know that Fox gets the first three selections during the Big Ten TV Draft. Fox will almost certainly use those top three picks to program its marquee Big Noon Saturday window.
So without further ado, here are the three most likely games to air in Fox’s noon window next year.
Ohio State @ Michigan, Nov. 29
This is all but a certainty to remain Fox’s top pick each year. As far as Big Ten games go, this is the one matchup guaranteed to draw a massive audience. In 2024, “The Game” averaged 12.3 million viewers on Fox during a down year for the Michigan Wolverines. That was good for the third most-watched game of the year (including conference championships), behind two Georgia-Texas matchups. Just one year ago, the game averaged 19.07 million viewers, the top regular season audience of 2023, and ahead of every single conference championship game.
There’s really not a whole lot else to say. This is one of the best rivalries in college football, and it will remain on Fox so long as it has the top selection every year.
Texas @ Ohio State, Aug. 30
Sorry Buckeyes fans, I know this isn’t what you would like to see, but you likely open your 2025 campaign at noon. This game is too good to pass up for Fox. Opening weekend. A rare chance to broadcast an SEC school. Two teams are in the 2024 College Football Playoff. Oh, and it’s the Texas freaking Longhorns, one of the biggest brands in all of college football. Don’t be surprised if Fox pulls Matthew McConaughey as its guest picker for Big Noon Kickoff, despite the game being in Columbus.
On top of this being a great matchup on paper, opening weekend is regularly among the best in terms of college football viewership. Fans are football-starved after a long offseason and eager to watch a big-time game. And this will be one of many. Opening weekend also includes Alabama-Florida State, LSU-Clemson, and Notre Dame-Miami as notable matchups.
Oregon @ Penn State, Sept. 27
With the third selection of the Big Ten TV Draft, Fox will be inclined to take the Oregon Ducks visiting the Penn State Nittany Lions. Yes, this won’t make Penn State fans happy as this is a prime candidate for their iconic “White Out” game, but it’s also one of the rare opportunities Fox will have to feature Oregon on Big Noon. Given the school’s westward orientation, Oregon home games aren’t eligible to be played in the Big Noon window. And as a rematch of this year’s compelling Big Ten Championship game, this one has all the makings of a big television audience.
Now, it’s unclear how exactly the draft goes after the first three picks. Presumably, NBC and CBS get the 4th and 5th selections, but it’s not certain in what order, and what happens further down the list. Complicating matters further, networks don’t actually pick specific games, rather they pick dates. What games air on which networks don’t actually get finalized until much closer to the day of the games, allowing networks flexibility to highlight top matchups as the season goes on.
For now, rest assured Big Ten fans. The noon window will still have a healthy dose of Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan next season.
