Yahoo! Sports reporter Dan Wetzel joined 92.3 The Fan’s The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima Tuesday morning and was asked if the Big Ten was hurt by leaving ESPN for basketball more than it was by taking their football rights to Fox, CBS, and NBC.
“They’re not going to an obscure streaming service,” Wetzel argued. “Their games are going to be on Fox, NBC, and CBS. If you can’t find those three, you’re probably incapable of watching television. They’re going to get their money. The NHL left ESPN and they famously stopped covering them. I don’t believe that’s possible with the Big Ten. How do you cover college football and not mention the Big Ten? ESPN is still in the college football business. They will have a least a piece of the Playoff, and the Big Ten will still be playing on their network in road games. So I don’t think it’s a big deal in football. I think Gameday will still go around. The talk shows on ESPN, all they talk about is the NFL, the Brooklyn Nets, and the Lakers. They don’t talk about college football barely ever, anyway.
“I do think for basketball, it is (a problem). Because I think it’s a much more casual fan base, outside of your hardcore fans that know ‘tonight’s the Michigan State/Wisconsin game. I wanna make sure I watch Big Ten Network’. You just sit down on a Tuesday night in February and you turn on ESPN and there’s a college basketball game. You’ve just been trained that several nights a week that’s Big Ten basketball. Now that’s going to be the Big 12 or the ACC. And I just think the more casual college basketball fan will miss not finding Big Ten basketball somewhere else. I do think there’s a factor there, but with this amount of money, I think that’s a risk certainly the Big Ten is willing to take.”
Carman pointed out the buzz of the NHL returning to ESPN was slightly negated by a majority of the games being ESPN+ exclusives, and wondered if Big Ten basketball games being relegated to Paramount+ or Peacock would further hinder the Big Ten.
