Big10 Media rights article

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In 2017, the Big Ten, then under commissioner Jim Delany, began what was reported at the time as a six-year, $2.64 billion deal with Fox and ESPN, in which Fox paid $50 million a year more than ESPN to get the first choice of games (i.e., Ohio State-Michigan).

Undisclosed at the time, though, was that as part of a larger deal, Fox, through its ownership stake in Big Ten Network, took control of the conference’s entire broadcasting rights, which it could then sublicense if it so chose.

Fox, not the conference itself, holds the authority to determine which other networks get to show Big Ten games. And the deal was for 15 years, so Fox will be the lead negotiator again when the CBS and NBC deals come up in 2030.

The arrangement caused awkwardness when ESPN’s share of the package came up for renegotiations six years into the deal. Rival networks had to walk into meetings and pitch not just to then-Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren but also to Fox Sports president/COO Mark Silverman and executive VP Larry Jones, who were technically the lead negotiators.

“It’s fairly unprecedented in my career, where you have one network that was on both sides of the deal that way,” said Kosner.

Fox theoretically could have kept all those games for itself, but Warren, who came to the league from the Minnesota Vikings, wanted an NFL-like setup with exclusive early afternoon, late afternoon and prime-time windows for three different networks. Fox played ball, cutting out ABC/ESPN and instead licensing a 3:30 p.m. package to CBS (replacing the network’s SEC package) and a new prime-time game to NBC.

It was reported at the time that CBS and NBC were paying the conference an average of $350 million a year each. In reality, they are paying to sublicense those rights from Fox.

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