Broadcast selections for two key Big Ten football matchups are set — Ohio State at Indiana and Oregon at Ohio State, according to a report from The Athletic.
FOX reportedly grabbed the October 17 showdown between Ohio State and Indiana, a matchup that has grown into one of the league’s most intriguing mid‑season draws. The report indicates the game in Bloomington will be the Big Noon Kickoff contest at noon ET with Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt on the call.
CBS countered by selecting the November 7 clash between Oregon and Ohio State in Columbus, which is expected to kickoff at 3:30pm ET / 12:30pm PT. Big Ten football games on CBS are also streamed live via Paramount+.
The selection of Ohio State-Indiana and Oregon-Ohio State reportedly occurred during the networks’ spring draft. FOX owned the first three picks, selecting Michigan at Ohio State, Ohio State at Indiana, and Oklahoma at Michigan.
With the fourth pick, CBS reportedly chose Oregon at Ohio State. NBC had the fifth pick and has already announced USC at Penn State as a primetime selection on October 10 (7:30pm ET on NBC and Peacock).
Below is more on the TV selection draft from The Athletic article:
Although trades can take place, generally Fox has five of the top 11 picks and the other networks have three selections apiece. Fox also chooses for FS1 while NBC picks for its Peacock streaming service. The networks often draft for a weekend’s pecking order rather than a specific game, which allows them to make their final selection for a given weekend 12 days before kickoff.
Big Ten Network, of which Fox owns 61 percent, is considered its own entity during the draft. Every Big Ten school must appear twice on BTN, including once during conference action.
There are a few restrictions, however. Fox cannot air a West Coast kickoff at noon ET. Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State and Iowa are exempted from hosting games on Fridays. With all three networks likely to select a game involving the Buckeyes or Wolverines, neither will participate on Friday nights.
If ND-USC have to meet in the first week of the season, then UM-OSU has to alternate time slots and networks every year. And I still much rather have the former game maintain its traditional scheduling, thus I’d rather change the tradition surrounding UM-OSU than that with ND-USC.
You change one thing about CFB, you must change another.
If ND wants to protect USC week, they can join the Big Ten. Til then…. nah. Have fun.
That’s not how it works, Z-man
UM-OSU is older and better than the ND-USC rivalry. Hands down and the majority of people agree. All you have to do is look at the media ratings. Annually, the OSU-UM game is usually the most watched CFB game EVERY season.
Notre Dame/USC can sit down and hush.
Nope. Michigan and Ohio State will always play on the final Saturday of the regular season, hopefully, always kicking off right after 12PM.
This post makes no sense.
Also, ND-USC was not always the last week of the season, it was only every other year.
I personally agree with USC-UCLA being the last week of every season. Both teams are local and are more likely to get more fans to the game on Thanksgiving weekend. I’m a proponent of making ND-Miami an annual rivalry on that weekend as both of their main rivals have other rival partners on that weekend.
BYUfan: It’s a Z-man post.
Par for the course.
Mr. Vandy Notre Dame-Miami would make a fantastic match up for last weekend of regular season.
UM-OSU would be most watched even if it wasn’t always at noon.
ND seems to want to end the season somewhere warm (or at least not freezing) the last week of the regular season. So they could end the season in Miami every other year, but probably still end the season @Stanford (maybe @SMU and @Cal) the other years.
Z-Man Michigan-Ohio State noon kickoff is by far more of a tradition than Notre Dame-USC.
In addition to Michigan-Ohio State big ten wants all conference games including UCLA-USC.
Notre Dame have contractional obligations with ACC & Miami would be a perfect fit for last weekend of regular season.
Notre Dame-USC & UCLA-California is excellent for September & Big Ten do not want those two games to be played last weekend of regular season.
Understood Richard. Z-Man has definitely said interesting things.
CBS and NBC have to be miffed that they haven’t gotten UM-OSU since the current contracts began. Rotating the game among the three networks and their respective time slots would be a fair compromise.
And it would be a better compromise than the one that allowed Art Modell to take the Cleveland Browns personnel to Baltimore while the Browns had to rebuild from scratch in 1999, something they have not recovered from to this day. And they are planning to start the highly unpopular Deshaun Watson as their starting QB, rather than Shedeur Sanders who had the best record of all Browns QBs last year. It is not looking good for the Browns this year, though they play the entire AFC South this year, their last three playoff bids (2002, 2020, 2023) all came in years they played the entire AFC South.
Pardon for Dan NW-IL-MI using fan in this post.
Z-Man as a Michigan Wolverines fan I welcome CBS to their 3:30PM games with very minor exception when they play your archrival Ohio State Buckeyes so I can respect traditional noon kickoff on FOX with college football best rivalry.
CBS & NBC will be good without Michigan-Ohio State in football plus CBS can show Illinois at Northwestern & NBC can show Washington at Oregon.
Furthermore, not wanting UM-OSU to rotate among the networks and their time slots is like wanting to go back to the BCS to determine the FBS national champion.
Going from the BCS to the CFP. then from a 4-team CFP to 12 teams, was progress. UM-OSU not always being at noon on Fox would also be progress.
Z-Man Michigan-Ohio State start times at 3:30PM & 7:30PM will greatly affect kickoff times for both Washinton-Oregon & UCLA-USC.
Also, Z-Man This debate with Michigan-Ohio State is over.
FOX pays Big Bucks in part because they are guaranteed Ohio State-Michigan every year. The Big Ten has no reason or incentive to protect or reward Notre Dame
Big Ten Championship rematch Ohio State-Indiana on FOX Big Noon Saturday would be excellent news should Penn State-Michigan get a very lucrative 3:30PM kickoff with CBS.
Anything is possible.
Unless some unexpected results happen along the way, PSU @ Michigan and Nebraska @ Oregon are the clear next 2 best games after Ohio St Indiana. With that game being big noon, CBS/NBC will take the other two. PSU @ Michigan, at least at this point, seems more attractive than Nebraska Oregon, so I would assume whoever has first pick between CBS/NBC takes that.
In week 10, with CBS taking Ohio St-Oregon, that seems to lock in PSU @ Washington for NBC 7:30 game. That is the clearcut second best game, at this point at least, and with the game on the west coast, it can’t be big noon. The big noon game would most likely be Michigan vs. MSU.
i hate the Big Noon concept…..having Ohio State/Indiana at Noon ET is ridiculous. It would be like having the warm up band play after the headliner
People watch Big Noon.
And what warmup band? SEC games on ABC in the afternoon and primetime regularly draw big ratings.
Big Ten have a fantastic OTA Television set up.
I don’t mind it. Maybe that’s because I live in MT though.
I will be happy to watch Big Ten Football even if I were living in Bozeman, MT.
By MT I meant Mountain TIme.
Wanting to see if new coach can get PSU to the Natty Game…
Penn State will be by far no doubt best conference game for Michigan this CFB season.
Not this year. But maybe in three or four years. Are you a Penn State fan? If so I would love to know what the Kalani Sitake saga was like from that perspective. I know for me it was extremely stressful and nerve racking and a huge sigh of relief when he stayed. We’ll see if it lasts though given the current fiasco between him and Brian Santiago.
I am a Michigan supporter BYUfan & enjoy watching Michigan-Penn State rivalry ever since PSU joined Big Ten well over 30 years ago.
Are there any particular reason why Michigan, PSU, OSU, or Iowa are exempted from hosting Friday Night Games? Or why Michigan/OSU basically never play primetime games in November? You would think Ohio State or Michigan would want a primetime game.
Logistics due to large stadiums on a weekday for Michigan, PSU, and OSU, and access issue to the hospital next to Kinnick Stadium. Apparently a higher volume of hospital employees and visitors on a weekday as opposed to Saturday.
I am a Michigan Wolverines fan & they only host two-night games a year & Michigan is excellent not hosting a Friday evening game.
In a ever changing world of college football and there one tradition that I really enjoy is noon kickoff of best rivalry in CFB Michigan-Ohio State.
Kevin, we all know the real reason is because they’re big brands who can bully their way into not having to play on Friday. That reasoning isn’t fooling anyone. Except for Iowa, that one makes sense.