The 2025 CFB TV Schedule Revealed: Which Conferences Dominated the Network Selections and Why?

Everything's in.  No more 12 day selections.  No more 6 day hold angst.

I did some tracking around 6 day holds, who I thought had the top pick for a few of the conferences, and tracked some appearance related items in this article, and I'd appreciate it if you read it alongside this one.

* Broadcast television still brings home the bacon when it comes to how prestigious your program looks and your conference is showcased.  In terms of the Big Four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX), here's how things break down by conference using the home team's conference as the conference of record.  Also adding in Notre Dame since they do take up a chunk of broadcast network time.  I've excluded any Army or Navy home games airing on CBS from the American's count since those schools' home games have been mostly set outside of the American's TV contracts, and conference championship games are also excluded.  

No doubt that the SEC takes up a ton of real estate on ABC alone.  I knew the Big 12 would have a good number because it gets several doubleheaders on FOX.  The Big 12 getting a decent number of broadcast network games on FOX and a token number on ABC reminds me a bit of how the previous Pac-12 contract tended to work.  ESPN and ESPN2 aired the majority of their set of Pac-12 games, while FOX and FS1 were a closer split.

The ACC number of 8 sticks out like a sore thumb since they're only a couple ahead of Notre Dame, who by contract gets nearly every home game on NBC.  If you add the CW as a network, the gap closes to the Big 12 (21 for the ACC), but the games on the CW are usually towards the back end of the selection process and not meant to be showcase games for the conference.  They do contribute a tangible number towards the ACC's success metrics pool, but they don't come close to what the ABC games provide.

* Which school showed up the most on the Big Four broadcast networks?  Including the top 20 schools plus ties (21 schools total), Alabama gets the nod.  The Big Ten (11) and SEC (7) naturally dominate this list (those whose conference appears on TV the most has more appearances to offer its members).

Notre Dame being near the top isn't a big surprise either.  They get a head start at 6 games when you start with home games NBC, but ABC loves to show them as much as they can too with 3 road game appearances.  I imagine that if Boston College or Stanford were mediocre, the Fighting Irish could have had the lead in this category.

The Big 12 contributes just 2 schools, but the conference has quality with respect to conference depth.  Not pictured here are 4 schools who made 4 broadcast network appearances (BYU, Utah, Arizona State and Iowa State).

* One topic of discussion is how often FOX leans into certain Big Ten schools in the noon window, which is their highest rated window.  And no one will be surprised by this result, which lists every school that made at least 2 appearances in the Saturday noon window on FOX.

No surprises.  They lean hard into Ohio State and Michigan.  Might have leaned into Penn State more if they had not had their midseason mess.  Did take them a while to trust in Indiana though.

But overall, the schools that appeared on FOX the most came from the Big 12, though it must be understood that the Big 12 has more games on FOX (25) than the Big Ten does (20) when you include all games on the broadcast network on all days of the week.  That said, Texas Tech had all of their FOX games on Saturdays (TCU had 1 Friday game).  Here's everyone who had at least 3 appearances on FOX:

* Since FOX clearly favored getting Ohio State and Michigan as much as they could, who did CBS and NBC end up with most often for their Big Ten selections?  We do know that they would have the full range of the conference's schools as nearly all of their games were at times acceptable to choosing a west coast school to host:

CBS is first, and them having Oregon as a regular choice should surprise no one.  Everyone listed made at least 2 appearances on CBS.

NBC's choices are much more spread out.  They did have 2 noon windows in addition to their mostly primetime schedule.  I'll say that it interesting that Oregon only appeared on NBC once, NBC's marquee (at the time) game between Oregon and Penn State.

You might be asking yourself regarding Indiana who took them the most, and the answer is nobody.  They had 2 appearances on each of the 6 platforms that carry the Big Ten (FOX, NBC, CBS, BTN, FS1 and Peacock).

* Yes, the ACC does miss out on a decent number of broadcast network opportunities as we mentioned earlier, but how do they do on ESPN, specifically Saturday on main ESPN once we get into the 12 day selection process that encompasses weeks 4 through 14? Not bad as they seem to be a priority to get on ESPN, regardless of the day of the week and in particular as the season progresses.

I wasn't completely surprised that 3 Power 4 conferences made up nearly all of the main ESPN Saturday selections once you get to the 12 day and 6 day selection weeks.

* ESPN2 is where more variability occurs.  Its where you'll see Power 4 and Group of 5 conferences mix together on a Saturday.  How does it look?  A bit different:

A quick caveat: the Saturday FCS games from the Southland and Big Sky come from games that were preselected.  They weren't placed as part of the 12 day process.

The American seems to get preference after the Big 12 and ACC where possible on Saturday, and that makes sense as they've been near the front all season with respect to the Group of 5 conference champion representative whether its been South Florida, Memphis, North Texas or Tulane, but the ACC and Big 12 continue at the top when it comes to Saturday selections.