The Big Ten Conference will be sending its football broadcasts in the coveted 2:30 Saturday afternoon slot to CBS, beginning in 2023, part of a seven-deal megadeal with an approximate value of $1.2 billion annually, signed with CBS, Fox, and NBC. The deal includes Fox Sports One, and the Big Ten Network, both part of the Fox family of networks, and will run through the 2029-2030 season. The Big Ten Conference will expand to 16 schools in 2024 with the additions of the Los Angeles market with UCLA and USC, giving the league content from the West Coast to the East Coast.
As it pertains to college football, in addition to the CBS 2:30 broadcast, which has been a staple of the Southeastern Conference for the past three decades, Fox will air its “Big Noon” game on Saturdays at 11 o’clock, while NBC will add “Big Ten Saturday Night”, with the broadcast airing in primetime.
The 2023 football season will be unique, with the Big Ten starting its deal with CBS, while the SEC will be in its last year with the network. Before going into a 14 to 15 game schedule in 2024, CBS will have seven Big Ten games next year, including the 2:30 window starting in 2024, and the Big Ten championship games in 2024 and 2028. The other title games over the course of the contract remains on Fox. For 2023, a couple of Big Ten games will air in Weeks 1 and 2 of the season, traditionally open weeks in the “SEC on CBS” schedule. Starting in 2024, a new contract between the SEC and the ESPN family of networks will begin.