That said, the Big 12 will still have possibilities for Big Noon, likely during non-conference play, and Cy-Hawk will be that chance at least one time this year. Scott Dochterman of The Athletic was able to get some insights about the Big Ten draft and if you subscribe, you can read about it here.
* It feels like FOX's Friday night schedule, which was extremely hyped last year, was announced as more of an afterthought this year. There are gaps in the schedule in October, presumably for MLB postseason, and one in November for reasons not yet clear to me (maybe a basketball event?). But there's only one host in the in the Eastern Time Zone (Rutgers). I'm curious if enough schools have put up roadblocks in the Big Ten where its not as viable.
FOX appears to have been able to get both Arizona schools to relax a longstanding preference for 7pm or later starts in September, with both hosting 6pm local games on Friday nights on the broadcast network. That said, that preference was relevant for the Pac-12 and I don't know if it has carried over to the Big 12.
* Reading a few tea leaves with the Big 12, BYU-Colorado feels like ESPN using one of their top 4 picks as it was outside the first four weeks of the season. It was also the only Big 12 game available on that Saturday available to be placed in the late evening slot with TCU-ASU on FOX on Friday. Also, knowing that Oregon-Penn State was selected for NBC that evening, I assume that ABC will have Alabama-Georgia in the evening.
Also, I'm a bit surprised that no Big 12 games were scheduled to air on FS1 over the early season portion of the schedule.
* As for the Big Ten, knowing that the 3rd of FOX's top 3 selections likely wasn't announced today (assume Texas-Ohio State at Ohio State-Michigan are the other two), it feels like NBC had the 4th pick by announcing Oregon-Penn State for 9/27 with the Ryder Cup occupying the afternoon on NBC that day. Was Michigan-Nebraska on 9/20 CBS's top Big Ten choice? It definitely indicates they were picking first in Week Four. Suspect we'll need to see how the season plays out.
* New Mexico at UCLA was listed as TBD on the Big Ten schedule for a Friday, and the game showed up on the FOX Sports release, which tells me that its part of their pool, either FOX/FS1 or BTN. Since FOX already has Kansas State at Arizona that evening, the game is for either FS1 or BTN. I assume that if the game is on FS1 with maybe a 9pm or 9:30pm ET start, Indiana State at Indiana will be a 7pm ET start on BTN. If its on BTN, it looks like a doubleheader with Indiana State at Indiana at 6:30pm and New Mexico at UCLA at 10pm ET.
* I was surprised to see no Big Ten game on NBC on 9/13, though I can appreciate a network being creative. Texas A&M at Notre Dame is taking the primetime game, and Peacock will have a doubleheader that day. Per the previously mentioned Scott Dochterman article, NBC is allowed to use their choice for Peacock or move their NBC game to an earlier timeslot, and in the case of 9/13 made the choice to go with Peacock for their game, which I'll assume was the Ohio at Ohio State game.
* The Mountain West's national TV release indicated that remaining games would be part of non-national TV packages, which indicates that the deal with TNT Sports to air games on TruTV has ended. That's a bit of a surprise since it was touted as a multi-year deal. I don't know if things soured when no men's basketball games were selected by TNT Sports when some schools indicated there were plans for games to be selected. Really unsure.
EDIT: Mountain West media relations has confirmed that only CBS Sports and FOX Sports will be the national TV partners for the conference in 2025-26, so yes, TNT Sports is out.
Of the remaining 21 games (one SJSU home game was picked up for NBC Sports Bay Area), seven will be part of the Hawai'i PPV package. Most of the remaining games have hosts that have televised games via regional or local TV stations, and I'd expect them to be streamed through the conference. Have reached out to the Mountain West and TNT Sports for confirmation, but multiple MW schools have noted that their remaining MW controlled games would be shown through MW Networks and other local/regional TV means.
EDIT: Mountain West media relations has confirmed that only CBS Sports and FOX Sports will be the national TV partners for the conference in 2025-26, so yes, TNT Sports is out.
Of the remaining 21 games (one SJSU home game was picked up for NBC Sports Bay Area), seven will be part of the Hawai'i PPV package. Most of the remaining games have hosts that have televised games via regional or local TV stations, and I'd expect them to be streamed through the conference. Have reached out to the Mountain West and TNT Sports for confirmation, but multiple MW schools have noted that their remaining MW controlled games would be shown through MW Networks and other local/regional TV means.
* ESPN backing away from Friday night NBA is college football's gain, with main ESPN carrying a game nearly every week on Friday nights, and some weeks where ESPN2 will have their own games.
* Didn't see any Ivy League Friday night games announced, nor any weeknight games from the two HBCU conferences. I assume those will show up during the summer.
10 comments:
FOX's third of their top 3 picks is almost surely Ohio State - Penn State. I assume they didn't announce it so Ohio State fans didn't freak out even more than they already have over the Texas game being big noon. Personally, I actually like big noon kickoffs. It basically guarantees there is a big time game in every time slot of the day (at least most weeks).
I'd actually be very surprised if CBS took Michigan Nebraska with their top pick. There seems to be a lot of better options after the previously mentioned Ohio State Penn State (FOX third pick) and Penn State Oregon (NBC top pick). It is a bit curious how this was announced outside the top 3 weeks, so maybe it was their top pick. It would just be surprising.
Now that Oregon-Penn State is on NBC on Sept. 27, it would be bad for sports fans for Alabama-Georgia to be at the same time. I hope they move it to 3:30pm. Alabama-Georgia probably wins over Oregon-Penn State if they went head to head but will certainly lose fans. I would put Alabama-Georgia at 3:30pm if I were ABC/ESPN.
several Ivy schools have put out their schedule with no Friday games announced, I wonder if the Friday ESPNU package is no longer.
I was struck by how bad the FOX lineup is, in general. Other than the Texas-Ohio State game, which will draw huge ratings, everything else ranges from not good to awful. They have South Dakota and Delaware on the broadcast network on two of the first three weekends of the season. Their best FS1 game is probably Air Force – Utah State, and it will probably be closer to halftime than kickoff when the broadcast starts. Their Friday night schedule has six open dates (some probably required due to baseball, but they could still a late West Coast similar to last year), and four games starting at 9pm on the East Coast, which can’t be ideal.
It seems to me their strategy of paying a lot of money to get the best broadcast package for the noon time slot and then filling the rest of their schedule with essentially the fourth or fifth weekly pick in the Big 10 and secondary rights for the Big 12 and Mountain West just doesn’t work. They have no depth of quality games, and it appears that few traditional Big Ten schools are willing to support their Friday night strategy.
My guess is that FOX is going to be looking for better Friday night options and high quality inventory overall, and combined with CBS and especially NBC not being their thrilled with their packages, that is going to lead to the Big Ten expanding into Florida and the Southeast, which will give FOX more Friday night inventory and uplift the overall packages for all three networks.
Darrell I had the same thought about Fox's early schedule, which seems even worse this year with ESPN now being in the driver's seats with the Big 12 rights. They have not even scheduled a primetime Saturday night game on Sept. 13. which should be available since there Baseball Night in America game is schedule for Thursday of that week. With them being boxed out of running Big Ten games on FOX in the 3:30 and 7:30 windows, I always wondered why they had no interest in the pre-realignment Pac 12's media rights. Sure they now have access to the media rights of 6 of those 10 teams, but they have limitations on when they can air those teams and they have competition for games from the other media rights holders of the Big 10 and Big 12. The first week I am sure they would have rather run Nebraska v. Cincy or Ga Tech @ Colorado in the 3:30 window instead of South Dakota @ Iowa State, but ESPN grabbed those two games to open strong on the on the 1st Thursday and 1st Friday of the season. Also confused why the Rutgers @ Washington game on Friday Oct 10 is on FS1 as FOX is not scheduled for an NLDS game on that date like they are the previous week .
If the ALDS starts on Saturday as expected, I believe game 5 would be Friday night, assuming travel days after games 2 & 4. FOX should have the ALDS this year since they had the NL playoffs last year.
If you recall, Northwestern-Maryland was moved off FOX over to FS1 to accommodate Dodgers-Padres Game 5.
Matt thanks for the reply. The site where I was getting info about the 2025 MLB playoffs must have been wrong. It will be interesting to see what ends up being broadcast on OTA FOX on the fall Friday nights when they do not have a college football game.
Re MLB 2025 postseason schedule - dates for games won't get released for another couple months. In general, the WC round should run Tuesday-Thursday after the regular season ends on Sunday, them the DS starts on Saturday. I know they staggered the off days of the two leagues so that there isn't a date with no games from either league.
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