The Big 10 Conference, which recently agreed to add the Pac-12’s UCLA and USC to its powerhouse roster, has signed a media rights deal with Fox, NBC and CBS worth a whopping $7.5 billion over seven years. Wall Street Journal sports reporter Laine Higgins joined Cheddar News’ Closing Bell to discuss how recent developments have disrupted the college sports landscape, particularly in football. “What is changing is the presentation on the networks, and the draw for teams like Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State is just bigger, and that's why they're being rewarded with such big contracts. And it changes the dynamic where once we had five conferences that were really leading the charge in terms of media rights and exposure, and now it's sort of consolidating to really just two,” the Big 10 and the SEC.


Closing Bell

Big 10 Conference Lands Multibillion-Dollar Deal With Fox, NBC, CBS

let's turn to the biz of sports. This is some big news. The Big 10 conference signing a media rights deal with Fox, NBC and CBS were $7.5 billion over seven years. The biggest annual tv deal for a college conference to date deal covers most major sports, including football, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball and wrestling. It may also fan the flames in the debate over how unpaid college athletes are treated and commercialized. So joining me now is Laine Higgins, sports reporter at the Wall Street Journal Lane. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Put into context for me just how big this deal actually is. Yeah, I mean, it is light years ahead of where most of college football is in the sense that we have the sec, which is poised to make about 800 million a year. And it's contract in 2020 for once that kicks in and a little more when sec expands to include Texas and Oklahoma. But the big 10, you know, their deal has is sloping. But towards the end of it, these conferences are going to be, That conference is gonna be pulling in over 1.1 billion a year, which is huge and very significant because currently the third place conferences, the sec with just under 400 million a year. So that's, you know, almost three times that by the end of this contract. And it just means that you have more money to go around for every little thing, whether it's a facility upgrades, coach salaries, you know, resources for athletes, etc. So talk to me about the changing dynamics lane as well because I know, you know, historically college football has been known for a range of different conferences, but increasingly over the years with teams getting added certain places and lost in other areas, it seems like the big 10 and the sec kind of still at least now take up more air space than others. Absolutely. I mean, they technically are all producing the same amount of games. So that part is not changing. But what is changing is, you know, the presentation on the networks and the draw for teams like Alabama, Georgia, michigan Ohio State is just bigger and that's why they're being rewarded with such big contracts. And its changes dynamic where once we have Five conferences that were really leading the charge in terms of media rights and exposure. And now it's sort of consolidating to really just two of having the big 10, which is, you know, formerly a midwestern conference that's now stretches coast to coast. And now we have the sec, which is still mostly concentrated in the southeastern part of the the United States, but still has so much powerhouse football programs in it that it's, you know, it's hard to top the content just in terms of the quality of the matchups because, you know, if you're gonna have to blow outs on the other coast of games, you're just not gonna get as many of yours. So let's talk about the big 10 because you're right now really a coastal conference if you will with the addition of U. C. L. A. And USC big names coming up in these next two years. What is the show about that conference is reached? Just how powerful the Big 10 is becoming? Yeah, I mean it's definitely a sign that the big 10, you know, is somewhere that is sought after, you know that and by the same token that the pac 12 is somewhere that's maybe not as desirable as it once was. You know, there was a time when the pac 12 had the richest media contract. But obviously due to a series of you know, hurdles that were not cleared, it kind of backfired in the pac 12 network never really realized its full potential. But that is why schools, I mean the money is certainly one of many reasons, but probably the biggest reason why these L A schools decided to you know, tie their wagon to a conferences across the country where all the logistics of actually competing are going to be way tougher for all the athletes. It's because they're going to be paid so much more money like threefold, possibly more and you know, that kind of makes it all worth it. And because the Big 10 has such strong brands and such rivalries, I mean one of the biggest things that helps them is this michigan Ohio state game which last year had 15 million viewers which is more than most, you know, programming that's on tv these days. That alone is enough of a draw for tv networks to add more money. And with that money It just becomes more attractive to any school that wants a piece of it. So it definitely shows that the big 10 is in a strong position right now. Yeah, so it is interesting laying here that the big 10 basically spreading the wealth even though I'm sure it's more lucrative for that particular conference here, splitting up the rights to three separate networks. What was behind that decision? Yeah, I mean it's kind of like an NFL model. Um and what you see with the rights to the Super Bowl and then that it's sort of this hedge that you know, the value of it, the game is so expensive or of the product is so expensive that it's kind of prohibitive for anyone network to bid on it and own it and you can actually get more money out of everyone in this case. You know, the sum would be less than the sum of the parts of the more than the whole. Um and you can get more out of it if you have multiple people sharing the responsibilities. And I think that was kind of the goal here and that, you know, kevin Warren had the commissioner of the Big 10 has NFL background. He spent a long, long time with the Minnesota Vikings and I think he brought some of that NFL style D N. A. Into this deal with the Big 10 and that he tried to spread, You know, the coverage around to, you know, get as good of a deal as he could, but also to drum up interest in, you know, what could eventually be a model that's used for the college football playoffs should expand when its media rights deal comes up in 2026. I mean, one of the things that's been talked about as a possibility for that is to split the rights between several different networks, like the Super Bowl does. And it's not something that is currently happening, but that is something that's going to happen with the Big 10 football championship game, which obviously is, you know, maybe paves the way to make that a little bit easier to be used elsewhere in college sports. All right Lane. Higgins, sports reporter at the Wall Street Journal Lane, thanks so much for coming on