By Ryan Bologna
Conference realignment has been a hot topic over the last couple of years with Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC and USC and UCLA bolting for the Big Ten.
The implications of those moves are that we will see different games and rivalries. USC going to Columbus to play Ohio State in a late-season conference matchup will take a while to get used to, but it is not the only part of college football that fans will see change. The future of conferences like the Pac-12 and Big 12 are in question and the ACC’s grant of rights agreement is a big wrinkle, but the underestimated factor in all of this is the television contracts. Those alone will change the way a typical Saturday looks during the college football season.
There is no bigger example of this than what the Big Ten is doing with its next TV rights deal. It has been reported that the new deal is worth $1.2 billion a year, the biggest TV deal we have seen for college. The Big Ten agreed with Fox for the noon window, CBS for the afternoon and NBC for the primetime window. No ESPN, how could that be? The Big Ten conference has been a staple on ESPN and ABC for over 40 years, and that is now going to change for 2024.
That means that ESPN is left at the bus stop and looking for more content. How will it go about filling that hole? Will it target more SEC games? That could be a big win for the network. The agreement was good news for the Pac-12 and Big 12. After losing some of the key members in the last couple of years, those conferences needed some good news. Some have also speculated that the Big East could be winners here. ESPN could see value in adding the basketball conference to the network to fill some of the airtime.
The remaining question is what will happen with Notre Dame? In the past, many have advocated for the school to join the ACC full-time, but with NBC getting in on the Big Ten games, Notre Dame will likely stay independent. The NBC agreement likely gives the school an opportunity to get more money when the TV contract renews, and it creates an opportunity for Big Ten teams to potentially play Notre Dame in that late time slot.
TV contracts are arguably the biggest reason why schools are ditching these historical rivalries. Every conference is trying to position itself in a way that leverages big offers for rights to their games. The Big Ten is the first domino to fall. The ACC will have to wait a while, but we should see more notable changes with other power conferences soon. It is likely that the college sports landscape is unrecognizable 10 years from now. Will it be good for the viewers in the end? Only time will tell.
Photo Credit: Steve Cheng
