In August 2022, the Big Ten conference agreed to a media rights deal with Fox, CBS, and NBC for a record $1.2B annually. It was the crowning achievement of now-former commissioner Kevin Warren. Warren left the conference to become President of the Chicago Bears, and the impression was the TV deal was mainly in place except for a few more minor details. According to a report from Pete Thamel, that is not the case and now new commissioner Tony Petitti is working to clean up the mess.
How an unfinished TV deal led to an unexpectedly hectic first month for the new Big Ten commissioner
According to Thamel's reporting, despite the 2023 season kicking off in nearly 100 days, there are still no agreed long-form contracts. There are multiple issues, starting with NBC's primetime coverage.
NBC agreed to the deal with the expectation of broadcasting a marquee Big Ten matchup in the 7:30 pm slot as part of their new primetime coverage. However, for years there have been agreements among the Big Ten and their broadcast partners that programs were not required to play in primetime after the first week of November.
According to Thamel;
"Multiple sources told ESPN there's been pushback from several schools, including Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State, to play those late-November night games under the new contract. That leaves Petitti to figure out how to uphold a deal for hundreds of millions of dollars for primetime games without cooperation from some of the league's marquee teams for part of the regular season's most important month."
Athletic departments and coaches say they were never approached regarding the change, and NBC was not aware of the previous arrangements that existed.
"NBC was surprised, and I was surprised," said Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel. "We had not discussed, and I had not discussed with anyone in the league to change the tolerances we had agreed upon years ago."
The value of the primetime coverage, and what NBC is willing to pay, would be drastically impacted by the ability of the network to broadcast games featuring three of the biggest programs in the conference. Multiple millions of dollars could be at stake.
This is not the only instance where Warren seems to have made a costly mistake. Warren also gave NBC the rights to the 2026 Big Ten Championship game, a move he did not have the authority to do and it will cost schools $40M. Warren did not have the authority because the Big Ten media rights are owned by the Big Ten Network, which is owned by Fox. Hence the reason Fox was always the driver of this new deal.
The Big Ten is working to find a solution for this season. In a previously unannounced gametime, Penn State and Michigan State will play a night game on Black Friday, the day before Michigan plays Ohio State. According to Thamel, this was scheduled without Penn State's prior approval. We also now know that the night game between Ohio State and Michigan State scheduled for November 11 was part of these negotiations.
Throughout negotiations there had been reports of concerns among officials at schools throughout the conference over a lack of transparency. One of the more vocal critics was Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo. Thamel included Izzo in his reporting.
Izzo recently said coaches weren't consulted by the league before the deal: "One thing about coaches, you're almost asking the wrong people because we're the last to know anything," Izzo told ESPN.
Izzo added that he has "concerns" about the amount of games available only on streaming and said that would be among his first questions to Petitti, as "it was not discussed with us [coaches] at all."
"Those are some things I'd like to see with the new commissioner, that there's some transparency in working together," Izzo said.
So as new Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti scrambles to complete a media deal by Kevin Warren that has both sides frustrated from Fox and NBC to athletic directors and coaches, another question looms.
And it leaves the league facing a decision on a potential bonus for Warren, who didn't have a bonus clause tied to a television deal in his contract. Warren's predecessor, Jim Delany, got a bonus of more than $20 million that was announced in 2017, and he's still getting paid for it because he led the negotiation that sold all of the rights through this decade. (The bonus had been in Delany's contract before the deal.)
The league has brought in an outside search firm, Korn Ferry, to determine whether Warren's work with this television deal should bring him a bonus.
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May 22, 2023 at 06:37AM
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