Awful Announcing
Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated reports that "The Big Ten’s deal will be arranged in a way to allow CBS to fulfill its SEC duties in the first year of the contract."
The Big Ten is set to no longer air on ESPN networks in its next wave of media deals.
ESPN is on the verge of being without Big Ten college football and basketball games for the first time in 40 years.
"They're the ones signing the mega TV deals, and a new one is coming in 2024. Why can't that be a NIL deal right from the Big Ten?"
"They really don’t like to be known as deciding who is in what league, but don’t think there aren’t conversations of, ‘If we take this property, how much value are they going to bring?’ We’re not picking random schools. … They just don’t want the optics of them deciding, but the money is coming from them. They have to tell the league or someone (the TV value of schools)."
"We enter these discussions understanding that we can’t get everything and that we’re going to proceed with both discipline and thoughtfulness. So I can’t tell you how this is going to play out. We are very much in it right now."
What other networks will get Big Ten rights?
Navigate's projections suggest the SEC and Big Ten will still be far ahead of the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 even after the next round of TV deals.
"Does Fox want to keep Joe if Joe's going to be unhappy? No. But do they want to be able to monetize this in myriad ways in order to really get some flesh out of ESPN? Absolutely."
The Big Ten rights have plenty of suitors, all approaching from various angles of need.
"I don't think I'm breaking any news here to suggest that [the Big Ten is] really important to our overall college football and college sports business."
