NBC Sports has announced its college football commentary team set to cover the Big Ten Conference for the upcoming 2023 regular season, the first under a new seven-year media rights deal with CBS Sports and FOX Sports. Sunday Night Football play-by-play announcer and Olympics host Mike Tirico will be the voice of the first exclusive game on Peacock to begin the year in a matchup between East Carolina and Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 2 at 12 p.m. EST/9 a.m. PST. He will be joined by analyst Chris Simms, returning for his seventh year with NBC and Football Night in America, along with sideline reporter Lewis Johnson.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish, which will play its final season under athletics director Jack Swarbrick, will retain the broadcast team of Jac Collinsworth, Jason Garrett and Zora Stephenson, which will also call select Big Ten Football games throughout the season. Former NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua is succeeding Swarbrick as athletics director in 2024, and will be immersed in the negotiations to renew the school’s media rights deal with his former employer. The school is said to desire tripling its media rights fee and possibly considering relinquishing its media independence and joining a Power Five conference should it fail to do so.
After DIRECTV lost the NFL Sunday Ticket rights package to Google, which is reportedly paying $2 billion annually, football fans began to wonder about the future of DIRECTV Red Zone host Andrew Siciliano. Although he is employed by NFL Network and continues to cover football, he had become a familiar voice and presence for fans around the country opting to watch his edition instead of the NFL Network-produced Red Zone with Scott Hanson. In addition to his role with NFL Network, Siciliano was the host of NBC Sports’ Gold Zone coverage at two Olympic games. Now, he will be serving as a play-by-play announcer for NBC Sports on select Big Ten Football games.
Siciliano is part of a group of commentators that will be used throughout the season on matchups, which also includes former NFL tight end Kyle Rudolph. The news of Rudolph joining the network’s Big Ten coverage was reported last month after he had been on the call for United States Football League (USFL) games in the spring. Joshua Perry, a former linebacker at the Ohio State University, also signed with NBC Sports after several years with Big Ten Network, and will be utilized as an analyst across Big Ten coverage. Other announcers peregrinating on assignments during the season include Paul Burmeister, Brendan Burke, Michael Robinson, Anthony Herron and Caroline Pineda.
As reported by multiple outlets on Tuesday, Nicole Auerbach will serve as the network’s lead college football insider and appear on the new studio program, B1G College Countdown. She will also be featured on other college football programming on NBC Sports platforms and discuss the latest on the conference. Additionally, she will continue her work with The Athletic covering college football and basketball, along with serving as a host for SiriusXM and studio analyst on the Big Ten Network.
The lead Big Ten Football booth by NBC Sports was previously announced and consists of Noah Eagle, Todd Blackledge and Kathryn Tappen. NBC, CBS and FOX will rotate carrying the marquee game, according to CBS Executive Vice President of Programming Dan Weinberg CBS will air more Big Ten games next season after its media rights deal with the Southeastern Conference concludes.
