-The league unveiled seven-year agreements with Fox/FS1, CBS, NBC and the Big Ten Network, which will take the Big Ten through the 2029-30 academic year. The conference also announced a deal with Peacock, the direct-to-consumer streaming platform from NBCUniversal. Peacock will exclusively stream four conference football games per year in addition to four nonconference games involving Big Ten teams.
-CBS and NBC are each paying around $350 million per year for their Big Ten packages, and sources said that the Big Ten’s new rights agreements are worth more than $7 billion over the seven-year term. That would make it the largest rights deal ever for a college athletic conference. Each contract is for seven years, which means the Big Ten will go to market again before the SEC’s new contract with ESPN expires in 2034.
-Fox landed the Big Ten’s premier package of games, which it will carry in the noon ET window. Starting in 2024, CBS will broadcast a Big Ten game at 3:30 p.m. ET, followed by a Big Ten game on NBC in primetime. Fox has increased its number of top selections in the football games draft in addition to maintaining the first overall selection for the next seven years; Fox will also broadcast four Big Ten championship games during the term.
-The deal is backloaded: CBS will not carry as many games in 2023 as it will for the duration of the contract, so the network will pay more in later years, and
USC and
UCLA will not join the Big Ten until 2024, so the added payments from then on reflect the increase in inventory.
-CBS, FOX and NBC will each televise designated Big Ten football championship games during the term of the agreements. Fox will broadcast the league’s title game in the odd years (2023, 2025, 2027 and 2029), while CBS will broadcast it in 2024 and 2028, and NBC will air it in 2026.
-Fox/FS1 will carry up to 27 regular-season football games in 2023, then up to 32 games per year from 2024 onward. BTN will broadcast up to 41 games in 2023 and a maximum of 50 games per year afterward.
-NBC will broadcast 16 regular-season Big Ten games in 2023 and then 15 games per year from 2024 onward. Games on NBC will simultaneously stream on Peacock. NBC will carry a primetime game on Black Friday as well.
-Because the SEC will remain on CBS through the end of the 2023 season, the Big Ten will have a partial schedule on the network its first year. CBS will carry seven Big Ten football games as well as regular season and postseason men’s basketball as well as, for the first time, the women’s basketball tournament final. Starting in 2024, CBS will broadcast up to 15 Big Ten football games per season, including an afternoon game on Black Friday. All of those games will be broadcast on CBS, and every game CBS airs will also stream on Paramount+.
The 2024 season will also mark a historic first: The first time in 40 years that ESPN will not broadcast home Big Ten football and basketball games. The network
pulled out of its negotiations with the Big Ten after saying no to the conference’s final offer of a seven-year deal worth $380 million per year.
ESPN’s exclusive 10-year deal with the SEC, starting in 2024-25, is believed to be in the $300 million per year range. That deal includes both 3:30 p.m. ET and primetime windows for the conference’s premier games.