Happy Friday, everyone! It’s Wajih AlBaroudi filling in for Zachary Pereles today and for most of next week.
Congratulations on making it through this week. Now, allow me to guide you through sports news you need to know before the grind begins again.
Good morning to everyone but especially to…
THE BIG TEN
More like the Bag Ten. The Big Ten announced a seven-year media rights deal with CBS, Fox and NBC. According to sources close to our Dennis Dodd, the deal — which is set to run July 1, 2023 through the 2029-30 season — has an approximate annual value of $1.2 billion, making it the biggest ever in college athletics.
- Big Ten fans will enjoy jam-packed football Saturdays under the deal: Fox will air the “Big Noon” game at (you guessed it) noon ET, CBS will have a contest in the 3:30 p.m. slot, and NBC will close with “Big Ten Saturday Night” in primetime.
- CBS will air the Big Ten Football Championship twice (2024, 2028), while Fox will have it four times (2023, 2025, 2027, 2029) and NBC once (2026).
- Each Big Ten school will earn an average of $75 million annually from media rights when USC and UCLA become the conference’s 15th and 16th members in 2024.
The deal smacks an exclamation point on what’s been an incredible summer for the Big Ten. The conference made the aforementioned additions of USC and UCLA in late June, making it a significant player in each of the country’s biggest media markets: New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
And according to Dodd, the Big Ten could consider adding new members before or after the deal takes effect. Cal, Oregon, Stanford and Washington are among the programs on the conference’s radar. Notre Dame is as well, but it reportedly seeks to remain independent.
With the Big Ten and SEC becoming increasingly powerful, Dodd foresees the two conferences becoming the “closest thing to the NFL.”
- Dodd: “They will be mini corporations running themselves with little or no NCAA oversight. That is a certainty. Deregulation is coming soon, perhaps by the end of the month. That means less enforcement and perhaps fewer FBS members to dilute the voting process. The two big boys will have such a monopoly the transfer portal and NIL won’t matter. They will control it all. Revenue sharing? Cool. Pay the players? No problem.”
Deshaun Watson gets 11-game suspension, $5M fine in settlement with NFL 🏈
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