College football news: Big Ten announces major $7 billion-plus TV rights deal
It's official: the Big Ten announced new media agreements that will make it the biggest earning conference in college football.
The league reveals seven-year agreements with Fox, CBS, NBC, and the Big Ten Network that takes the conference through the 2029-30 season.
The league also announced a deal with streaming platform Peacock, which will show four Big Ten conference football games in addition to four non-conference games featuring Big Ten teams.
In all, the Big Ten's new rights deals will amount to over $7 billion over the seven-year life of the contract, according to analysts.
CBS and NBC are set to pay the Big Ten around $350 million per year each, analysts report, making this the largest rights deal for any conference in college football.
Each deal is set for seven years, meaning the Big Ten will go to the market again even before the SEC's deal with ESPN expires in 2034.
Fox will carry Big Ten football games in the 12 p.m. Eastern window, and starting in 2024, CBS will show a Big Ten game at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, and NBC will broadcast a Big Ten game in the primetime window.
The rise in the Big Ten's value comes after the conference announced a bombshell decision to add USC and UCLA starting in the 2024 college football season.
By adding the two premier brands, the Big Ten increased its media scope to include the Los Angeles media market, the second-largest in the U.S.
And effectively spreads its media coverage from coast to coast.
For the first time in 40 years, ESPN will not show home Big Ten football or basketball games after that network pulled out of the talks recently.
“The Big Ten Conference media rights agreements are more than just dollars and deals. They are a mechanism to provide stability and maximum exposure for our student-athletes, member institutions and partners during these uncertain times in collegiate athletics,” Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said.
“We are very grateful to our world-class media partners for recognizing the strength of the Big Ten Conference brand and providing the incredible resources we need for our student-athletes to compete at the very highest levels, and to achieve their academic and athletics goals.”
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