Friday, May 30, 2025

2025 Conference TV Requirements, Six Day Holds and Likely First Picks

Instead of cluttering up the weekly picks for 2025, I'm going to keep track of selection specific information in this post like six day holds that have been used, the number of times I think a network has chosen first and the required appearances that a school needs to fill on conference networks like Big Ten Network.

Updated as of 11/15/25 selections on 11/3/25.

Six Day Holds Used
ACC (3 remaining): 11/1
American (2 remaining): 9/27, 10/18
Big Ten (2 remaining): 10/25, 11/8, 11/15
Big 12  (3 remaining): 11/1
MW: 10/25
SEC: 11/1

Please note that this is my guess about who chose first in a given Saturday. This is not a confirmation from either the networks or conferences of who chose first.

Big Ten

Assumed top Saturday choice each week.  Weeks 1-5 and 14 were known in advance of the early season selection release.

08/30FOX: Texas at Ohio State
09/06CBS: OK State at Oregon
09/13FOX: Oregon at NW
09/20CBS: Michigan at Nebraska
09/27NBC: Oregon at Penn State
10/04NBC: Minn at Ohio State
10/11FOX: Ohio State at Illinois
10/18CBS: Ohio State at Wisc
10/25FOX: UCLA at Indiana
11/01FOX: PSU at OSU
11/08FOX: IU at PSU
11/15NBC: UCLA at OSU
11/22
11/29FOX: Ohio State at Michigan

Each school is supposed to appear on BTN twice each season with at least one appearance against another Big Ten school

SchoolRemaining Needed
IllinoisNone
IndianaNone
IowaOne vs. B1G
MarylandNone
MichiganNone
Michigan StateNone
MinnesotaNone
NebraskaNone
NorthwesternNone
Ohio StateNone
OregonNone
Penn StateOne vs. B1G
PurdueNone
RutgersNone
UCLANone
USCOne vs. B1G
WashingtonNone
WisconsinNone

124 regular season games are available to the Big Ten's rightsholders.  It appears that NBC, CBS and Peacock will take at least 39 (maybe only 37?) of those games.  FOX, FS1 and BTN would take on 85 (maybe 87?) of them. 

EDIT (10/31/25): NBC Sports doesn't have any more Peacock exclusives listed, which feels incorrect.  I guess FOX & FS1 would pick up the slack, but I do wonder if Peacock needs to add two windows to its November listings.

Here's the known selections used by each rightsholder:

FOX/FS1NBCCBSPeacockBTN
38 of 41 (or 43?)12 of 1513 of 15 7 of 7 (or 9 ?)40 of 44

Big 12

Assumed top Saturday choice each week.  

08/30FOX: USD at ISU
09/06FOX: Iowa at ISU
09/13ESPN: Pitt at WVU
09/20FOX: TxTech at Utah
09/27ESPN: BYU at CU
10/04ESPN: TxTech at UH
10/11ESPN: ISU at CU
10/18FOX: TxTech at ASU
10/25FOX: BYU at ISU
11/01ESPN: Cincy at Utah
11/08ABC: BYU at TxTech
11/15ESPN: TCU at BYU
11/22
11/29

Starting with this season, ABC & ESPN Networks has the top four choices across the season.  After that, FOX Sports and ESPN share selections.  

Per Jon Wilner of Bay Area News Group and other reports,

* FOX Sports is capped somewhere around 35 games per season with at least seven games on FOX broadcast network.  
* ESPN will carry (at least?) 27 games across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.  Games were not expected to air on ESPNU, but some will.
* TNT will carry 13 games.  Ten games will be intraconference games.  Most games are early in the day and they will skip 9/20.
* Remaining games will be on ESPN+, which appears to be 33 games at the most.
* Counts below exclude the conference championship game airing on ABC.

FOX22
FS18
Total28 of 35

ABC1
ESPN18
ESPN211
ESPNU3
TBD1
Linear TV34
ESPN+19 of 33 (?)
Overall53 of 60


TNT11 of 13

American

The American has a minimum of 40 games per season on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, excluding the conference championship game.  At least 20 of the 40 are expected to be on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.  So far, at least 20 games have been guaranteed to air on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.  Counts below exclude the conference championship game on ABC.

ABC1
ESPN10
ESPN213
ESPNU11
ESPNEWS/Other0
TBD0
Total35

2 comments:

Sam S said...

Mr. Sarz,

Any ideas on the Big Ten 9-20?

Iowa at Rutgers on Friday night Fox...

Michigan at Nebraska 3:30 CBS
Purdue at Notre Dame 3:30 NBC
Washington at Wash State 7:30 CBS

Oregon is home to rivals Oregon State. Surely a later kickoff?

How do you forecast the Illinois-Indiana, Maryland-Wisconsin and Michigan State- USC

The Indiana feels big as it will be a top-25 matchup and I see nothing for Fox at Noon. Is that likely in your opinion?

Matt Sarzyniak said...

I'll have some guesses for those games in September. Not any earlier.