B1G and Fox close to Media Rights Agreement

It must be NBC if not ESPN, right? Or would Fox want the whole thing?

You would think ESPN needs to B1G to fill the 11am inventory. They normally have at least 3 B1G games on then spread across 1/2/U/News.

 
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This is getting intense.

It's gotta end up with a split among broadcasters, right? I can't imagine where Fox would place 3-4 simultaneous early starts. And what about spillover as games end late?

 
Flood said:
It's gotta end up with a split among broadcasters, right? I can't imagine where Fox would place 3-4 simultaneous early starts. And what about spillover as games end late?
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Fox has a lot of channels games could go on - Fox, FS1, FS2, FX

 
ESPN is in such a peculiar place right now with recently laying off hundreds of employees and their profit loss reports. ESPN still does the job better than anyone else, but I find the whole situation fascinating.

 
Flood said:
This is getting intense.

It's gotta end up with a split among broadcasters, right? I can't imagine where Fox would place 3-4 simultaneous early starts. And what about spillover as games end late?
Click to expand...
Fox has the capacity to handle five simultaneous starts (FOX OTA, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, FX, FXX). If this happens, you'll just see the Big XII games bumped down from Fox Sports 2 to FX and/or FXX (unless Texass or Oklahoma are involved). Plus, IIRC, I think Fox can throw games to their regional networks too (Fox Sports SW) if they're Tier 3 games (e.g. Kansas vs. Iowa State). We've already seen Fox throw Big XII games to FX and FXX in the past, so this isn't far-fetched at all.

Interesting tweets that were posted. Not sure how much of that is posturing, and how much of it is the ESPN and B1G pretty much saying "Bye Felicia" to each other. Plus, there's been talk this whole time of NBC Sports wanting to be more involved with FBS CFB, including Saturday night football via NBC OTA. Signing on for dibs on Tier 1 B1G games for their Saturday night broadcast would be a hell of a feather in their cap. And it would explain Mike Tirico going over to there. Though I don't know how that would shake out with their Notre Dame rights.

I don't see CBS involved in this discussion except for Tier 1 Basketball rights--they seem too firmly entrenched in the SEC for their CFB offerings, and I don't know how much longer their CBS Sports Network on cable will operate.

 
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