Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand told Jimmy Traina on the latest episode of Sports Illustrated Media Podcast that the Big Ten’s new landmark media rights deal is expected in the coming weeks, and ESPN is no longer considered a front runner to land the rights of the Power 5 conference.
“I’m told at some point in August. It should come down before Labor Day,” Ourand said when asked when to expect an announcement. “Fox is certain to keep it. If I’m going to handicap it, I still think CBS has to have something. They’re losing the SEC on Saturday afternoons. That’s a big hole. I would expect CBS to be extremely aggressive in terms of keeping it (the 3:30 ET Saturday slot).”
Ourand said ESPN, who has held some, or at times all, of the Big Ten’s rights has been relegated to a “wild card” in the negotiation. He also noted Amazon Prime Video could still be a player, but league power brokers could be hesitant to strike a deal with the streaming platform.
“The conference and the university presidents are going to be ok with taking a couple of games and putting them on a streaming service like Amazon? You wanna talk ‘old school’? College athletics is very old school,” Ourand joked.
Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren originally said the rights deals were expected to be announced before Memorial Day, but that timeline became complicated by the addition of USC and UCLA to the conference.
A report from Scott Dochterman of The Athletic indicated conference members are expecting rights fees per school to rise from $57 million per year to at least $80 million with the new deal.
