https://www.secsports.com/article/304915...-agreement
https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/SB-B...2/SEC.aspx
What does this mean for the Big Ten?
The Big Ten's media deals end after the 2022-23 season. Currently the football's first tier rights are split with both ABC/ESPN and FOX and the men's basketball's first tier rights I believe are with CBS, FOX, and ESPN with CBS having the semifinals and finals of the Big Ten Tournament.
The official SEC page specifically highlights ABC in their logo. The Sports Business Daily article says "ABC will carry an SEC football game in a late afternoon window on Saturdays starting in 2024. That game will be branded as ”SEC on ABC.”" Do you think ABC will be playing favorites come 2024? If you're the Big Ten, you're the second banana on ABC. Who knows, you might see Penn State/Michigan on ESPN (that happened in 2018 and they couldn't air SEC games on ABC).
For years, the SEC was able to get an exclusive time slot on CBS and a network that channeled all its efforts and marketing to them. The best game of the conference each week (well at least in their opinion, every once in a while they stupidly chose a game involving a Mississippi team) aired at the same time, same station (except for the occasional prime time game). That doesn't happen in the Big Ten where you have to wait 12 or sometimes 6 days to figure out when and what network you're on and neither ABC or FOX is required to air your game, they can dump you to cable if they want. I'm not saying the CBS contract is the only reason the SEC has lapped other conferences on the field and in popularity but it doesn't hurt. I'd love to have that in the Big Ten. Why can't we take the Big Nooner slot every week? Ohio State would know every year when they play Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, etc. they will be on noon on FOX. Or why not get CBS's old 3:30pm ET slot? Let CBS do for us what they did for the SEC. We have a relationship in basketball, why not football? If we renegotiate with ESPN, we need to get guaranteed slots on ABC. If the SEC gets them, we should as well.
Obviously the first thing the Big Ten wants in their deal is $$$$ and lots of it. Hopefully we draw interest from multiple networks and that will drive up the price. I've said before I think we pitch our first tier rights as one package and it will be more valuable to a single network than splitting half rights to two networks. Would a network pay more than double for all of the top Big Ten games as opposed to half of them? I think so. We've been able to stay ahead of the SEC but I'd be surprised if we can once their new contract kicks in. Maybe the Big 10 calls Oklahoma/Texas. We bring them in and maybe we can get more than the SEC.