The conference's record $7+ billion media deal, which starts THIS FALL, was never actually finalized! It's almost inconceivable...
How an unfinished TV deal led to an unexpectedly hectic first month for the new Big Ten commissioner
When the Big Ten officially introduced Tony Petitti as its new commissioner nearly a month ago, he listed four immediate priorities in his role as one of the most powerful people in college sports.
... Lastly, Petitti prioritized the official completion of the massive television contract worth more than $7 billion negotiated by his predecessor, Kevin Warren. This issue may have seemed like a mere formality, but complications to the much-celebrated deal arose soon after he accepted the job.
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...the Big Ten does not have completed longform contracts, which include the fine print details. Instead, Petitti is engaged in significant "horse trading," according to multiple sources, to get the NBC primetime deal finished and figure out what the network calls "outstanding issues" in order to uphold as much value as possible.
"These deals aren't done, and they aren't what they were represented to be from the standpoint of the NBC deal and the availability of all members to participate in November games in primetime," said an industry source.
Interviews with nearly a dozen sources in and around the Big Ten and the college sports industry paint a picture of Petitti sprinting to navigate details left unresolved from his predecessor. [Kevin Warren, now with Chicago "Bears" of NFL]
As a result, there's a trail of unhappy athletic directors seeing money disappearing from their bottom line, frustrated television executives and big-name coaches irked about the lack of transparency in detailS...
Big Ten schools have seen potential revenue disappear the past few months from a contract that was announced back in August as being worth an average of nearly $1 billion per year through the 2029 football season. More than $70 million in total is suddenly in flux -- nearly $5 million per school -- and it has left administrators around the league seeking answers and calling for financial accountability.
Recently, schools have found out:
They are going to have to pay back nearly $40 million to Fox because, according to sources, Warren delivered NBC the Big Ten football title game in 2026 without the full authority to do so. This all has unfolded under the complicated backdrop of the Big Ten conference not actually controlling the rights to the inventory of this latest deal -- the Big Ten Network does, which is majority owned by Fox. (More on that below.)
They are going to have to pay $25 million total for a deal to pay Fox back for lost 2020 football game inventory. This came after an arrangement between Fox and the conference that was unable to muster the lost revenue from the COVID-19 season.
There's tens of millions of dollars of value of the NBC primetime deal in flux, as Petitti has been racing to ensure it keeps as much of its original value as possible....
Multiple sources told ESPN there's been pushback from a number of schools, including Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, to play those late-November night games under the new contract. That leaves Petitti to figure out how to uphold a deal for hundreds of millions of dollars for primetime games without cooperation from some of the league's marquee teams for part of the regular season's most important month.
... NBC wasn't aware until well after the initial contract was signed this summer that these big-brand schools had historic tolerances that were part of the prior television arrangements and would resist being available.
"NBC was surprised, and I was surprised," said Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel. "We had not discussed, and I had not discussed with anyone in the league to change the tolerances we had agreed upon years ago."
Within the industry, though, there was an expectation that, considering the scope of the deal, all schools would play in prime time.
"The fault here is with the administrators on campus," said another industry source. "How did the presidents, chancellors and athletic directors not know this? The universities all signed off on the deal."
...
"This is what he's walking into right now," another industry source said of Petitti. "Tony is trying to save it, and what Penn State and Ohio State are doing is actually trying to minimize the losses."
Warren did not return requests for comment.A full understanding of the deal Warren helped negotiate with NBC, CBS and Fox begins with a bizarre twist -- the Big Ten didn't technically own the rights. (Hence the tension over Warren using the Big Ten title game without Fox's permission.)
In 2016, when the Big Ten announced its long-term television deal with Fox and ESPN, the announcement didn't include all the details. One of the things that didn't get disclosed at the time, nor as the new deal was being discussed in recent months, was that the Big Ten Network had acquired all of the league's programming rights back in 2016 through an undisclosed date. The length of that deal with the Big Ten Network from 2016 is carried at least through the current deal, which has been announced through the 2029-30 season.
This relationship was known by athletic directors, television executives at rival networks and officials in other leagues, even if it wasn't announced publicly. It flashed out into the public at various times, including Sports Business Journal reporting in April 2022.
What this also essentially meant was the latest round of Big Ten television deals were effectively sub-license arrangements, in which both the Big Ten Network and Fox essentially controlled the rights and worked with the Big Ten to sub-license them off. That meant a majority of the value of the deal had already been sold.
"It was a joint negotiation with the conference and FOX working together and doing deals with these other networks," said an industry source. "They both needed each other to do the deals."
That factor is key to understanding the issues Petitti faces. There are two new partners -- NBC and CBS -- attempting to work out their longform deals. There's a familiar partner, Fox, that's riding shotgun on this bumpy ride, including being upset Warren promised a title game Fox controlled without permission.
The league and Fox had also been in talks with Amazon about the deal that ultimately went to NBC, but according to sources, there was late pushback by key campus stakeholders that some of the biggest brands weren't ready for part of a marquee package to only be available on streaming. That set up the push to get as much money as possible from NBC.
And it leaves the league facing a decision on a potential bonus for Warren...
The league has brought in an outside search firm, Korn Ferry, to determine whether Warren's work with this television deal should bring him a bonus. ...
One certainty is that the Big Ten television deal, despite the size, has not satisfied many coaches around the league. ...
Ohio State football coach Ryan Day:.."There was a collective disappointment among coaches on how the night game issue was handled," Day said. "We were surprised when it emerged, and there was no consultation on the change with coaches as a group prior to the television contract being announced."
