Big Ten TV deals done

[stever20]

Wow just wow. Not sure where to begin. Sort of surprised Fox didn't get more of things honestly- sounds like only 4 of 7 title games and still not getting the 2nd or 3rd best games of the year for football.

For Basketball- will be interesting to see how many more games Fox gets. And will be interesting now for the Big East how ESPN losing Big Ten changes their perspective for trying to get the Big East. Lots of windows now open from ESPN.

[butlerguy03]

I'd like to see how much of that 7 billion is going into research at these "elite research universities."

[Omaha1]

Insane money. Looks like Big Ten will be exploring future expansion as well.

[gtmoBlue]

Fox gave out 3 of the 7 championship games to boost the pot for CBS (2) and NBC(1).

Fox is not necessarily "getting more' content. CBS picked up more tier 2, NBC some Tier 2 and 3.

Sweet deal for both the conference and these networks. This bodes well for the BEast come 2024.

https://bluenotes2.com/in-the-paint-posts/ B1G Deal...

https://youtu.be/kOGBQBB0uTk

[adoraz]

Not the $90-100 million per team some were expecting, but still very impressive.

I'd be surprised if ESPN doesn't make a play for the Big East given how many of the Big Ten and Big East markets overlap, and ESPN doesn't have major market teams in them anymore.

ESPN would then have teams directly in major markets including: New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, etc.

I'd be ok with ESPN/ESPN+ given how popular ESPN+ is, but I think the Big East needs to stay far away from stuff like NBC/Peacock. At least for their main package. Also with ESPN I could see ESPN replacing the B1G/ACC Challenge with a Big East/ACC Challenge.

[GoldenWarrior11]

Mega win for the Big Ten. I have no idea how it positively or negatively affects the Big East, but the Big Ten and SEC are very much in a different galaxy moving forward. I just hope we get a valuable bump in pay for us to continue investing and supporting our successful basketball programs.

[DeltaV]

Not the $90-100 million per team some were expecting, but still very impressive.

I'd be surprised if ESPN doesn't make a play for the Big East given how many of the Big Ten and Big East markets overlap, and ESPN doesn't have major market teams in them anymore.

ESPN would then have teams directly in major markets including: New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, etc.

I'd be ok with ESPN/ESPN+ given how popular ESPN+ is, but I think the Big East needs to stay far away from stuff like NBC/Peacock. At least for their main package. Also with ESPN I could see ESPN replacing the B1G/ACC Challenge with a Big East/ACC Challenge.

The logical part of my brain says you're right. ESPN has great exposure, and playing the old Big East teams in an ACC challenge would get great ratings.

However, playing nice with the schools which ran after football money, only to land in obscurity in a conference running in borrowed time until their grant of rights expires and they get picked apart by the BIG and SEC doesn't sit well with me.

[gtmoBlue]

The logical part of my brain says you're right. ESPN has great exposure, and playing the old Big East teams in an ACC challenge would get great ratings.

However, playing nice with the schools which ran after football money, only to land in obscurity in a conference running in borrowed time until their grant of rights expires and they get picked apart by the BIG and SEC doesn't sit well with me.

Oh great & wise Delta V. Thank you for saying this.

ESPN and all of the former BE schools can rot in a special section of hell - reserved for cowards, traitors, and former Big East schools.

[adoraz]

Fair points, but at the moment it looks like the ACC may be together until 2036 until their GOR expire. I know several teams are trying to leave but thus far haven't been able to. The Big East's next TV contract I'd think would be much closer in length to the Big Ten's 6 year than the Big East's current 12 year deal. Let's say if in 2025 we sign a deal less than 10 years with ESPN, then a Big East - ACC Challenge may not be negatively affected by ACC departures. Further, if teams do find a way around the GOR, then it'd likely be teams like Florida St, Clemson, and Miami leaving rather than Duke, Syracuse, and Louisville.

That said, maintaining the B1G challenge would be great because they're the biggest conference out there, but currently it's only 8 teams and they'll soon be a 16-20 team league. It also doesn't have Big East vs Big Ten branding like our Big XII challenge (or ACC vs Big Ten challenge). Personally I'd also be more interested in playing ACC teams, and I'm sure most east coast Big East fans would agree (keep in mind we also play midwest teams in the Big XII challenge). If ESPN had our rights I could definitely see them doing an 11 vs 11 challenge each year (or 12 vs 12 with Gonzaga?) with ACC vs Big East branding. Going to ESPN would help expand our audience and remind their viewers that our conference exists. It wouldn't just be stuff like SportsCenter that'd help with exposure, but also ESPN.com, ESPN apps, ESPN+, etc.

I'm not saying the Big East should or will pick ESPN over Fox. We could even end up on ESPN as a second package (CBS currently) and still maintain Fox as the primary package. I do though think the Big East needs to put it's ego aside in regards to what happened 10 years ago (remember, we were the ones who went with Fox), accept realignment is the current $$$ reality in college sports (for all conferences), and sign whatever contract works best for our league.

Edit: also, I know we all love Fox here, but keep in mind they did just destroy a conference (PAC 12) just so the Big Ten would get higher payouts. That's arguably even worse than what ESPN did with the Big East because what Fox did doesn't make geographical sense and was so random. None of that really matters though, we just need to go with whatever works best for our conference.

[Django]

I think we let the ACC and all the teams it hijacked from the Big East die on the tobacco farm for the next 14 years... they're in GOR purgatory while everyone else is pretty fluid. Let's stick with the B1G as much as we can. Stick with FS1 as much as we can. f--- ESPN and f--- the ACC. The B1G is our footprint (even more if we add the Zags) and it's a great brother conference. Huge schools in small towns vs small schools in huge towns. The best and richest research institutions vs some of the best private liberal arts universities that still compete in athletics on the highest level. They were the first ones to help us out with the Gavitt Games scheduling. They now are all in with the network that saved us, FOX. I still see no reason why they wouldn't just add us as a "basketball division" if they break off into a Power 2... The SEC couldn't really do that with the ACC, Pac or B12 because all those schools would want their football teams included. That's messy. Basketball by nature has more seats at the table, 68 teams in March madness while the CFP still has 4. The old Big East already showed you can have a power football conference with a power basketball division in one seamless league... then in 2036 we could be the ones voting for or against letting Syracuse in, but by then they could be considered so putrid the orange juice might not be worth the squeeze.