As seems to be his habit, Fox’s Joel Klatt casually announced some news about the Big Ten’s upcoming schedule on Tuesday.
At a performance on The herdthe Fox analyst apparently let slip that the Oct. 12 clash between top-five teams Oregon and Ohio State will be in primetime on NBC. The news also helped complete a conference schedule puzzle that first took shape on Klatt’s own podcast earlier this offseason.
In May, Michael Mulvihill, Fox’s president of insight and analytics, joined The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast to discuss how networks that share a conference’s television rights choose which games to air where. And in doing so, Mulvihill revealed not only that the networks – in this case, Fox, NBC and CBS – have a draft, but that the selection process also allows the television partners to swap their selections.
According to Mulvihill, such a deal came about with regard to the 2024 schedule because Fox – which, as the Big Ten’s largest rights holder, had the first three picks – sold the third selection to an unnamed network. As the executive explained, the networks do not select individual games, but rather the dates on which they receive the priority selection.
“The No. 3 pick, we probably discussed it more than any other pick in the history of college football on Fox,” Mulvihill said. “There were two dates that we thought were particularly strong. One is Oct. 12, when Ohio State goes west and plays Oregon. One of the best games of the season not just in the Big Ten, but probably in all of college football.
“The other really interesting date is November 2nd. There are two, I would say, high-profile games on that day. One is Ohio State versus Penn State, a very traditional Big Ten matchup. And the other is Oregon heading east to play Michigan in the Big House.”
After using its first two picks on Nov. 30 (Ohio State vs. Michigan) and Sept. 7 (Michigan vs. Texas), Fox opted to trade the No. 3 pick to a network we now know is NBC in exchange for the opportunity to move up later in the draft. As expected, the Comcast-owned network used the selection on Oct. 12, where it will now have an impressive doubleheader of Notre Dame vs. Stanford at 3:30 p.m. ET and Oregon vs. Ohio State in prime time. Fox, meanwhile, later chose Nov. 2.
“The decision was so difficult that we just didn’t make it,” Mulvihill said. “We can trade our picks in this selection process just like you trade picks in the NFL Draft. And we actually came up with a solution that I think worked well for everyone; I think everyone will be happy.”
It’s also worth noting that part of Fox’s calculation appears to be the logistical difficulties presented by the Oregon vs. Ohio State game on the West Coast, as the network’s prime time slot for college football is at noon ET. Given the Big Ten’s growing presence in that area of the country, that’s a hurdle it will likely have to overcome going forward.
In other words, don’t be surprised if Fox makes even more trades in the coming years.
