One of the statements Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren made last week during the conference’s annual two-day media gabfest caught my attention.
He told assembled reporters at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis that the conference will be in four time zones in 2024: East, Central, Mountain and West. “So now we’ll be able to provide content all the way from the morning into the night and lead into some really incredible programming.”
It’s always goofy when these guys refer to football games as “content” and “programming,” but that’s not what made me pause. It was the part about broadcasting from the morning into the night.
The announcement at the end of June that USC and UCLA were leaving the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten in 2024 confirmed that college athletics — driven by football — are in a period of dramatic and tumultuous change. Texas and Oklahoma announced last summer that in 2025 they’ll leave the Big 12 to join the SEC, the most accomplished football conference. Bringing USC and UCLA aboard was the Big Ten’s counterpunch.
As fans wonder whether the Big Ten’s westward expansion will help or hurt the recruiting and postseason fortunes of their own teams, university presidents and athletic directors are focused on how the move will translate into dollars from networks looking to carry the games. Geographic time zones are fine, but TV programming slots are what drive the revenue that funds the construction of practice facilities, luxury suites, and coaches’ salaries.
In 2021, Wisconsin’s regular season football games kicked off in each of the three traditional Saturday time slots of late morning, mid-afternoon and primetime. The Badgers’ berth in the Las Vegas Bowl presented a fourth slot: 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 30. That may have irritated fans who like to see games concluded before midnight, but consider it a preview of what’s to come when regular trips to Los Angeles for conference games are on the schedule.
The ability of the conference’s television partners to add that late evening time slot to their menu of offerings is a big reason Warren appeared so triumphant behind the podium in Indy.
He was no doubt speaking with knowledge of the terms of the league’s next media rights deal, due to be released in the coming weeks. Some believe that deal, which includes “programming” on the Big Ten Network along with traditional networks like CBS and ESPN and streaming services, would have weighed in at more than $1 billion per year before the addition of UCLA and USC. The thought of that number climbing even higher with added “content” in more time slots is why presidents of the conference’s current slate of 16 teams unanimously supported expansion.
Is Warren done? The ultimate prize for both the Big Ten and SEC is Notre Dame, which has functioned as an independent in football, with its own TV deals, even as its other sports joined the ACC in 2012. And the Pac-12’s Oregon, Washington and Stanford have been mentioned as possible fits for joining UCLA and USC.
But Warren wouldn’t say for sure in Indianapolis, insisting only that any further expansion “will be done for the right reasons, at the right time, with our student-athletes’ academic and athletic empowerment at the center of any and all decisions that we will make.”
Uh huh.
Think about the academic empowerment part of that when the Wisconsin soccer and volleyball players, who don’t get the benefit of flying on charter planes like their football-playing peers, have to head to California to play their new rivals. Most of them aren’t prepping for careers in the pros and will have to miss multiple days of class for those trips.
BIG GAMES
Dirt Kings
Fans of NASCAR and Formula One racing owe it to themselves to visit Sun Prairie’s Angell Park Speedway to see the sport’s true grass roots. The Dirt King Late Models will take to the oval track on Aug. 14. Opening ceremonies begin at 6 p.m., but get there when the gate opens at 4 p.m. and you can meet the drivers and get an up-close look at the cars in the pits. Tickets are $20.
Brew Crew
The Milwaukee Brewers host the Los Angeles Dodgers for four games, starting Aug. 15, 7:10 p.m., at American Family Field. Then they head to Chicago for a three-game series against the Cubs before flying to L.A. for three more games against the Dodgers with no days off until the 25th. L.A. is the National League’s top team, while the Brewers have a tenuous hold on first in the Central.
UW VB
The national champion UW volleyball squad opens its season in Texas against TCU and Baylor on Aug. 26 and 27 before returning to the Field House on Sept. 2, to face Marquette at 7 p.m.