The Big Ten’s massive TV deals may not be the windfall that they were first reported to be. A new report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel says that when Kevin Warren left the conference’s commissioner job, the details of a new contract with NBC were not completed and Big Ten school presidents and athletic directors are starting to feel like they were sold something that is not a reality.
The Morning Juice dove into the report on Monday morning. Brandon Beam and Bobby Carpenter reacted in disbelief to the fact that schools are just now learning that the conference has to give $40 million back to FOX because Warren sold the 2026 Big Ten Football Championship Game to NBC, something he may not have been authorized to do.
“To say that that’s malfeasance doesn’t even do it justice,” Carpenter said.
Plenty more money is on the table too. The league has to pay FOX back for games missed during the 2020 season, which was impacted by Covid-19. The value of the NBC deal is also unknown as some of the Big Ten’s biggest brands push back on having to play nighttime games in November, something traditionally, the league has not done.
NBC’s deal could see a $70 million shift in value based on the results of negotiations between the network and new Big Ten President Tony Petitti. Divided by the sixteen schools in the Big Ten, that would see each school getting nearly $5 million less than anticipated from the new TV contracts.
“Five million sounds like a rounding error when you’re making 75, 80, whatever the number is,” Carpenter said. “A lot of these schools, they couldn’t overcome a budget deficit of $5 million. There is a shortfall of $5 million, they’re done. They’ve got to figure out, ‘Okay, RIFs or cuts? We were counting on this money coming in. That’s to pay for this program and this building,’ but all of a sudden, poof, they’re gone.”
Bobby Carpenter did not mince words in his criticism of Kevin Warren, pointing out that Chicago Bears fans should be worried as Warren is now the team’s president. He added that all of the problems reported by Thamel with the league’s new TV deals are careless, self-inflicted wounds.
“Why they’re losing money is because they basically sold the Big Ten Championship Game twice – sold to Fox and they sold it to NBC.”
