You want to know a secret about watching the NFL that people don’t seem to realize. In most of the country doing so does not require cable. The league, which partners with CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC and Amazon has almost every single one of its contests on free over-the-air TV or easily streamable with only Monday Night Football airing most of its contests on ESPN. Even then2022 will feature 6 matchups on ABC. Soon The Big 10 (which will have 16 teams soon), will be available across NBC, CBS, and Fox in much the same way. After a 40-year relationship with ESPN, the conference has signed a new TV rights deal with the major broadcast networks that will make Saturdays a Big Ten buffet.
The league which has been on an expansion kick for 20 years will soon be a coast-to-coast national college athletics league with teams stretching from New Jersey to California. The bulk of the Universities that make up the Big 10 are midwestern schools but among them are Michigan, and Ohio State, which are national brands in college athletics. When the two crown jewels of the Pac 12 USC and UCLA join up the league will have a presence in the top 2 media markets in the country with Rutgers bringing the NYC market and the two California schools moving LA right into the mix.
To top things off, NBC, which will have a primetime presence will also simulcast its games on Peacock, much like it already does with Notre Dame football and Sunday Night football. Paramount+ users who get access to CBS will also be able to stream matchups. Overall it is the most cord-cutter-friendly college football conference in the country especially compared to The SEC and the ACC, both of which are heavily tied to ESPN thanks to the ACC and SEC Network as well as other media rights agreements. Not to say that those two conferences and others do not show up on free broadcast TV, but the stark difference between the TV deals are unavoidable.
This big change to the Big Ten will not take effect until the 2023 regular season.
