The Big Ten’s sports streaming deal is extremely lucrative — and confusing - The Verge
You can watch games on NBC, Fox, and CBS and stream them on Peacock and Paramount, but there’s really no rhyme or reason to the future of football viewing.
The Big Ten Conference announced a new slate of sports TV and streaming deals on Thursday, which will reportedly bring the conference more than $8 billion over the next seven years. It’s the richest rights deal in the history of college sports, with most of the money coming from Fox, CBS, and NBC — and most of the games coming to linear TV. There’s a streaming element, too, mostly through Peacock and Paramount Plus. But the big takeaway from the latest big-money deal? Watching sports is only getting more confusing and more expensive.
Here’s the basic rundown of the deal as it pertains to the upcoming football season: Fox got the best package of Big Ten games, which will kick off at noon on Saturdays during the season. CBS gets a handful of games next year and then a bigger slate of 3:30PM games starting in 2024, all of which will also stream on Paramount. Night games will be on NBC and Peacock, and there will be eight games throughout the season exclusively on Peacock. ESPN, which for years was the main broadcast partner of the Big Ten, will no longer have games — it’s focusing on the SEC and NFL instead.
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