Upcoming changes to TV rights in CFB

[pf9]

In 2024, the SEC will leave CBS behind after 28 seasons.

ABC and Fox are both candidates to take over that package, but I believe it will go to NBC. For starters, because NBC's only regular season games are the home games of Notre Dame, they are the only Big 4 network not to see any teams they hold broadcast rights to become national champions since the start of the now-defunct Bowl Coalition in 1992. Fox, a network which is decades younger than NBC (and was only 4 years old when I was born), has done so - it broadcast the 2014 Big Ten Championship Game, won by OSU. For perspective, ND was only 3 years removed from their last national title when their home games arrived on NBC in 1991. Now the drought is at 31 years. If ND is counted as its own conference (though playing in the ACC this year), it has the longest national title drought of the collective Power 5 conference memberships.

Another thing that should be looked at is that the ACC and the Big 12 are the only P5 conferences still televising games on RSNs (not counting networks dedicated to a single conference, one of which is the ACC Network). I was surprised the ACC still had its RSN package after launching the ACC Network. With the upcoming rebranding of the Fox Sports Networks (now owned by Sinclair), the ACC and Big 12 should really consider moving their current RSN packages to a nationally distributed network.

Both packages could easily land on Paramount Movie Network (the soon-to-be new name for the Paramount Network), with sister company CBS Sports producing the games. This could be a gateway for ViacomCBS to eventually replace the SEC with the Big 12 come 2025, splitting with Fox and completely replacing ABC and the ESPN networks as a partner of the Big 12.

Edited September 24, 2020 by pf9