Report: Big Ten has TV deal in place despite entering rights negotiations

Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren has been leading meetings made up of executives from a litany of the top broadcasting networks for the conference’s media rights negotiations. The only problem? The Big Ten has already has a deal in place to renew their previous broadcast partner, FOX, with the network for the foreseeable future, according to Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand.

Among the entities looking to strike a deal with the conference are Amazon, Apple, CBS, ESPN, NBC and Turner, to name a few. Fox is also among the group as they listen to their peers make pitches for the conference they thought had already been locked up.

Mark Silverman and Larry Jones, two Fox Sports executives, have been listening in on meetings as they try to save their pitch to keep the Big Ten on their programming. Warren and Kerry Kenny, the conference’s senior vice president of television, media, analytics and emerging platforms, have led these meetings and have final say on whose hands the conference’s media rights end up in.

The terms of Fox’s deal is not yet set and not even Big Ten or Fox executives know how many games that package will have as the conference still is trying to sell potentially multiple packages to separate networks. The conference expects to award these packages by Memorial Day, according to the report. Currently, Fox carries 27 Big Ten football games every season.

While each broadcasting entity tries to sell their own pitches to the conference, and the non-traditional ways to watch college football and sounding more and more enticing for a Big Ten conference looking to expand their reach around the nation, but that doesn’t mean you ignore the big dogs.

CBS, ESPN and NBC all have reasons they’d like to secure a deal with the Big Ten. CBS is losing the SEC at the end of next season and are looking to fill spots for primetime football. NBC has also been pushing to have a Big Ten game complement the Notre Dame game each week; NBC holds the exclusive rights to all Irish football games. ESPN, on the other hand, has the SEC locked up until 2033-2034, but is always looking to add more pieces to the puzzle.