In 2006, the Big Ten and the Fox Corporation started their partnership to create the Big Ten Network. The aim was to broaden the convention’s enchantment by airing video games that in any other case would not have been on TV, and earn a living alongside the manner. The plan has since modified.
Twenty years later, Fox and the Big Ten have fully remade the map of college athletics, and now the aim is to basically alter college football as we knew it for greater than 150 years.
Before we get to the place we’re going, let’s first bear in mind the place we have been: Realignment crash course.
At the time of BTN’s launch, the Big Ten was one among six roughly-equal energy leagues. I say roughly equal as a result of the Big East, which launched football in 1991, eternally misplaced its shot at equal footing when Penn State turned the Big Ten’s eleventh member in 1991. With that transfer, the Big Ten achieved two issues: 1) it weakened a possible rival, and a pair of) it broke away from the thought {that a} convention’s identify was certain by widespread sense. Nevertheless, BTN’s success starting in 2007 pushed the convention to improve its earnings by way of growth. Since then, the Big Ten has taken from each single one among its friends besides the SEC.
The convention opened the floodgates by swiping Nebraska from the Big 12 in 2010, then defied all sense looking for {dollars} and cents by buying Maryland from the ACC and Rutgers from the American (previously Big East) in 2012. Over time the logic for realignment modified, and in 2024 the Big Ten despatched a dying blow to its former companion convention out west by buying UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington.
Of course, the Big Ten wasn’t the solely convention to take a predatory stance towards a peer, however they’ve typically been the first, the most aggressive, and the most brazen.
The Big Ten and Fox’s evolving relationship.
At launch, the Big Ten owned 51 p.c of BTN, and Fox 49 p.c. Over time, the ratio has flipped, and Fox now owns 61 p.c to the Big Ten’s 39.
But cable TV is now much less vital immediately than it was in the 2000s, and so the finest metric to perceive the community and the convention’s relationship is thru its most up-to-date spherical of media rights negotiations. In signing an NFL-like take care of Fox, CBS and NBC, the latter two networks negotiated their respective contracts with Fox sitting on the Big Ten’s facet of the desk.
Does this sound like a partnership to you, or an proprietor/property relationship?
Now think about that, for higher or worse, Fox has constructed its college football technique round proudly owning the Saturday midday window and, more and more, taking part in video games on Friday nights. This means Ohio State and Michigan followers have to plan round each huge and even medium recreation kicking at midday, whereas Rutgers may have to kick at 11 p.m. on a Friday.
Where we’re going subsequent. Fox constructed its sports activities technique and, certainly, its entire TV empire off of proudly owning as a lot of the Cowboys, Packers and 49ers as attainable, and its college football technique is constructed round replicating that success, with zero regard to the way it impacts college football, and college athletics, as a complete.
Fox desires to nationalize college football as a result of its believes there’s extra money in catering to casuals than serving diehards. It desires to commerce USC-Oregon State for USC-Ohio State, and would not care if it requires delivery UCLA softball to Ann Arbor or fully crushes Oregon State in the course of.
Now, let’s apply that to the CFP. Here’s what Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks stated Thursday, by way of Sports Business Journal:
Ben Portnoy on Twitter
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Before we go additional, I would like to state that Shanks isn’t precisely incorrect in connecting any of those dots, neither is he alone in coming to these conclusions. Plenty of directors, coaches and followers have stated the similar on their very own. In Shanks’s thoughts, he is merely working to give the individuals what they need and make some cash alongside the manner. I’m simply making an attempt to lay out the penalties of the modifications he is pushing to institute.
No one’s going to turn down extra significant video games in September, however bear in mind the stability of the see-saw. If each recreation is “meaningful,” ultimately none of them are. Texas-Ohio State was a frenzy merely due to the stakes concerned. In the olden days, the loser would’ve had to stroll a tightrope uphill all season lengthy to stay in the hunt for the nationwide title. The stakes aren’t fairly as excessive as they have been in the Nineties and 2000s, however Texas nonetheless missed the CFP at 9-3 partially due to that loss. If there is no penalty for dropping in non-conference, there is no which means in these video games, both.
The which means Shanks is making an attempt to add to November are the seventh, eighth, and ninth place B1G and SEC groups taking part in for the twenty second and twenty third seeds in a 24-team match. It’s this, however with the 5-4 Wisconsin and Minnesota IN THE HUNT.
Reducing the stakes for non-conference video games and reducing the bar for CFP participation would maintain extra individuals invested in college football for longer, I’ve little question about that. It would additionally turn college football into a wholly completely different sport than what it used to be, and I’ve critical doubts Fox or the Big Ten care.
