Get ready for some Friday night Big Ten football this fall
With an expanded conference and a recently expanded media rights agreement in place, it stands to reason the Big Ten and its media partners will want to squeeze every little ounce out of the contract as possible. And it appears that Fox is about to tap into some Big Ten football on Friday nights beginning this upcoming season.
According to a report from The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand (subscription required), Fox is preparing to unveil a plan to add a weekly Friday night college football game to the broadcast schedule this season. With deals in place with the Big Ten, Big 12, and the Mountain West Conference, it is expected the network will split the Friday night games between its partner conference.
Fox will have room to fill on its broadcast schedule after parting ways with the WWE for Friday Night Smackdown. How many Big Ten games are slotted for Friday night games as part of Fox’s programming remains to be seen.
The good news? Penn State may be chosen to play on a Friday night somewhere along the line, but it is highly unlikely the Nittany Lions will ever host a home game on a Friday night. The logistical nightmare of hosting a gameday on a Friday is something Penn State (and Ohio State and Michigan) have previously been vocal about when the Big Ten began exploring the possibility of having Friday night games.
We’ll start getting a taste of how the TV schedule will begin looking later in the spring as networks rotate their selections for the upcoming season.
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