(05-16-2017 09:06 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(05-16-2017 09:03 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-16-2017 08:07 AM)stever20 Wrote:  so lets look at the 2 packages based on these 1st 5 weeks....

Fox gets-
Ohio St/Michigan
Ohio St/Penn St
Michigan St/Notre Dame
Pittsburgh/Penn St
Iowa/Northwestern

ESPN gets
Penn St/Michigan
Ohio St/Oklahoma
Penn St/Iowa
Michigan St/Northwestern
Iowa/Nebraska

ESPN also gets next 1st choice and I would assume would take Michigan/Michigan St. Fox would get Wisconsin/Nebraska.

All in all, the packages are really close.

The packages are pretty close. The price difference between the Fox and ESPN packages is largely driven by Fox always getting the Big Ten Championship Game rights and there's quite a bit of value in getting the #1 game pick overall (as Ohio State - Michigan got a rating on par with the CFP semifinals last year).

The only question with that is would Ohio St/Michigan get that type of rating if the teams aren't in the top 5, and it's a de facto playoff play-in game?

What the chart shows is that it's definitely not a tier 1/tier 2 type of situation. ESPN will be getting good to very good Big Ten games.

Well no, OSU-Michigan won't get that rating every single year, but it's probably the most consistently watched game of any college football rivalry from year-to-year regardless of how they're playing. It has the highest "floor" rating of any game and viewership goes into the stratosphere when both teams are contending, so that's worth a fairly large premium.