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It is now official. The Big Ten announced a record-breaking media rights deal on Thursday with NBC, Fox, and CBS.
The new agreement will begin on July 1, 2023 and run through the 2029-2030 season. It will now be the largest in college athletics history totaling upwards of $7.5 million over seven years.
USC and UCLA are prepared to join the Big Ten in 2023 giving the conference 16 members. Each program is expected to earn $75 million annually, which is up from $54.3 million from the most recent fiscal year (2019-2020).
“We are very grateful to our world-class media partners for recognizing the strength of the Big Ten Conference brand and providing the incredible resources we need for our student-athletes to compete at the very highest levels, and to achieve their academic and athletics goals,” Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said.
Fox will continue to feature the “Big Noon” kickoff for Big Ten football followed by a 3:30 P.M. ET game on CBS. NBC will also feature a primetime game on Saturdays, in addition to Notre Dame’s typical slot at 2:30 P.M. ET.
“With Big Ten Saturday Night and Sunday Night Football headlining each fall weekend in primetime on NBC and Peacock, along with our historic Notre Dame Football partnership, NBC Sports will be the home of premier games in college football and the NFL,” NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua said.
The three networks will share the rights to the Big Ten Football Championship Game with Fox leading the way in 2023, 2025, 2027, 2029. CBS will show the game in 2024 and 2028 while NBC holds it for 2026.
Warren has said that the conference is not finished expanding. The Big Ten will not expand just for the sake of it but there is a chance that the conference could reach 20 members in the near future.
“I am incredibly grateful for collaborative efforts and hard work of our conference staff, specifically Laura Anderson, Anil Gollahalli, Kerry Kenny and Adam Neuman, our presidents and chancellors, athletics directors, coaches, student-athletes, and our partners at CBS, NBC and FOX Sports for solidifying unprecedented Big Ten access across transformative media companies for our fans to tune-in and follow the Big Ten content they love,” Warren said.
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