Big Ten announces huge TV deal across three networks

It’s been talked about for months. The Big Ten has been in negotiations for a huge TV deal over the past year or so once the current one expires after this season. Well, the deal has finally been announced, and it’s a doozy. Where will the Ohio State football team be televised from now on?

The answer is three different networks. FOX remains the primary partner, but CBS and NBC are also joining in. The deal is worth about $1 billion annually across the next seven years. It’s a massive deal that gives each school a huge amount of money.

Not only that, but each network will get to televise the Big Ten Championship Game. FOX gets it in 2023, 2025, 2027, and 2029. CBS gets it in 2024 and 2028. NBC gets it in 2026. So all three networks get to showcase the best of the Big Ten, and hopefully a lot of Ohio State football games.

This deal also means the end of a 40+ year relationship with the Big Ten and ESPN. Games will no longer be shown on that network or ABC. The timing of the games is also what we thought. FOX gets the Big Noon game, CBS gets the 3:30 slot, and NBC gets primetime.

CBS’s first season in 2023 will include 7 football games and a full slate of regular season basketball games for both the men and women, as well as the Big Ten Tournament for each. Starting in 2024, CBS will get 15 football games, including an annual Black Friday game in the afternoon.

NBC will get 14-16 football games each season. Unfortunately, that also means that some games will be exclusively on Peacock as well, NBC’s streaming service. 8 football games will be on there, as well as many as 32 men’s basketball games and 15 women’s basketball games.

I hate the idea of Ohio State games being put on Peacock exclusively, but that’s an issue we’ll address when it comes. The entirety of the Big Ten just made a whole lot of money, and that’s good for Ohio State too.