FOX close on B1G deal

[MUPanther]

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Dail ... g-Ten.aspx

The two sides have agreed on basic terms that will give Fox the rights to around 25 football games and 50 basketball games that it will carry on both the broadcast channel and FS1 starting in the fall of '17. The deal runs six years and could cost Fox as much as $250M per year, depending on the amount of rights the Big Ten conference puts in its second package.

[DudeAnon]

This is nothing but good for us right?

[Jet915]

This is B1G. Legitimizes FS1 as a channel, getting only half means there is plenty of timeslots for Big East and Big Ten games. Watch the ratings soar...

[Jet915]

Also intersting that other half of package is still up for grabs....

[DeltaV]

Also intersting that other half of package is still up for grabs....

50 basketball games...thats what, 5 a week, and is half the package?

I haven't paid attention for years; are that many games on the BTN?

The big question is which games...is Fox getting Penn State-Rutgers, or MSU-Indiana?

[whiteandblue77]

Also intersting that other half of package is still up for grabs....

50 basketball games...thats what, 5 a week, and is half the package?

I haven't paid attention for years; are that many games on the BTN?

The big question is which games...is Fox getting Penn State-Rutgers, or MSU-Indiana?

No way they would agree to just the crappy teams, I'm sure they split up the biggest games and names to be an even 50-50... would make no sense otherwise, right?

Delaney understands how the BE and B1G have very tight geographic footprints, so you'd prolly see Marquette vs Depaul after Wisconsin vs Illinois or Xavier vs Butler after Ohio State vs Purdue or Creighton vs Xavier after Nebraska vs. Ohio State or Georgetown vs Villanova after Maryland vs Penn State, or Seton Hall vs St. Johns after Rutgers vs. etc...

[Jet915]

Also intersting that other half of package is still up for grabs....

50 basketball games...thats what, 5 a week, and is half the package?

I haven't paid attention for years; are that many games on the BTN?

The big question is which games...is Fox getting Penn State-Rutgers, or MSU-Indiana?

No way they would agree to just the crappy teams, I'm sure they split up the biggest games and names to be an even 50-50... would make no sense otherwise, right? Also, this pretty much makes the Sling TV thing out of the question because a lot more games will be on FS2.

im sure it will be similar to what they do with Big XII and Pac-12...take turns choosing games.

[stever20]

The big impact will be I'm sure that some games from the Big Ten will be on Big Fox for basketball.

The ESPN package has been about 5 games a week for basketball. If Fox has half, that would be between 2-3 slots a week.

[Polyfro]

Also intersting that other half of package is still up for grabs....

50 basketball games...thats what, 5 a week, and is half the package?

I haven't paid attention for years; are that many games on the BTN?

The big question is which games...is Fox getting Penn State-Rutgers, or MSU-Indiana?

It's really half of half -- the previous deal was split 50/50 between ESPN and BTN (with CBS sub-letting a small number of basketball games from ESPN).

With the new deal, BTN retains the half they had before. ESPN's half has now been split in two, so Fox's deal gives them half of the roughly 100 games ESPN had, or somewhere around 50 hoops games a year. If you guesstimate that 10-12 of those will be non-conference games, that leaves roughly 40 conference games spread over ten weeks from January to March (which is almost exactly ⅓ of the league's 126 total conference games). That works out to 3-4 games per week on FS1/2 or FOX, which leaves plenty of room for the Big East -- double-headers with the Big East leading into a B1G game, or vice-versa, will probably happen a lot, and that's a great thing for Big East ratings.

That probably means some of the lower tier Big East games currently drawing flies on FS1 will move to FS2, but that's OK.

As for who gets what games, unless one or the other pays significantly more, it'll probably work like the Fox/ESPN split on the Pac-12 contract -- they'll each get a roughly equal number of marquee games.

[Jet915]

Kristi Dosh ‏@SportsBizMiss
ESPN reportedly wasn't competitive at all with its bid. Fox pulling out the big bucks for just half the Big Ten's first-tier rights.