I’m not going to link all of the contracts out there, but if things appear to settle into the following buckets, I think you could see the networks work out like this for Tier 1 content:
SEC (16): ABC/ESPN
Big Ten (16): Fox
ACC (14+ND): ABC/ESPN
Big 12 (18): CBS
Notre Dame (Home games): NBC/Peacock
CBS wants to stay in the game, and I think we will be the only real viable option left in the game. There will be a number of games, week to week, that should provide good, ranked teams playing one another.
The current SEC on CBS schedule, is 15 games including the SEC Championship. They also have a few MWC games, Army/Navy, etc. I would not be surprised, at all, to see us have some sort of deal with CBS that included Tier 1 rights with simultaneous streaming on Paramount+.
For Tier 2, should this come to pass, we will be the only major players for late night, post 8 PM content. With 18 teams (and 9 conference games), we would have 81 conference games and, roughly, 30(ish) non-conference home games that we own. So, depending on how many CBS takes, we could be shopping 90-100 games to Tier 2 and Tier 3, with 40(ish) of those happening after 8 PM for Fox and/or ESPN.
That’s not insignificant.
Knowing that ESPN is going to be filling up on SEC and ACC content, there may still be room for us, and I think ESPN is going to be very interested in keeping our basketball content.
If this comes to pass, I would not be surprised to see a poor man’s version of the current SEC format with us having a lot of CBS/ESPN/ESPN+ content on Saturdays. Fox wants a piece, too, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
We will have a lot of options.
SEC (16): ABC/ESPN
Big Ten (16): Fox
ACC (14+ND): ABC/ESPN
Big 12 (18): CBS
Notre Dame (Home games): NBC/Peacock
CBS wants to stay in the game, and I think we will be the only real viable option left in the game. There will be a number of games, week to week, that should provide good, ranked teams playing one another.
The current SEC on CBS schedule, is 15 games including the SEC Championship. They also have a few MWC games, Army/Navy, etc. I would not be surprised, at all, to see us have some sort of deal with CBS that included Tier 1 rights with simultaneous streaming on Paramount+.
For Tier 2, should this come to pass, we will be the only major players for late night, post 8 PM content. With 18 teams (and 9 conference games), we would have 81 conference games and, roughly, 30(ish) non-conference home games that we own. So, depending on how many CBS takes, we could be shopping 90-100 games to Tier 2 and Tier 3, with 40(ish) of those happening after 8 PM for Fox and/or ESPN.
That’s not insignificant.
Knowing that ESPN is going to be filling up on SEC and ACC content, there may still be room for us, and I think ESPN is going to be very interested in keeping our basketball content.
If this comes to pass, I would not be surprised to see a poor man’s version of the current SEC format with us having a lot of CBS/ESPN/ESPN+ content on Saturdays. Fox wants a piece, too, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
We will have a lot of options.
