Dear Andy: Why does Fox keep making Ohio State play at noon?
The 2024 college football season is in crunch time, and you, the listeners and viewers of Andy & Ari On3 , have questions. Let's dive into the latest edition of Dear Andy to answer your college football questions.
From JackHow does the Big Ten Media rights deal actually work? It was my understanding that the three networks rotate each week who has the first pick of games for the week. Ohio State has their final six games of the season at noon. That seems to just be unlucky as Fox has had first pick on weeks that Ohio State had its biggest games (at Penn State and three weeks later vs Indiana). The other weeks CBS and NBC have picked other big games leaving Fox to select the Ohio State games vs lesser opponents.
ABC seems to have found an advantage by not locking themselves into one time slot. They have the ability to see what the big afternoon CBS and night NBC games are to decide which time slot they should put their biggest SEC game of the week.
The biggest debate this week seems to have nothing to do with the College Football Playoff. It's Ohio State, Penn State and other Big Ten fans versus Fox complaining about the network's practice of airing huge games at noon. The complaints truly began in earnest on Monday when the Big Ten announced -Ohio State would air at noon ET on Nov. 23. That's the biggest remaining game on the conference schedule, and placing it there means the Buckeyes' final six regular-season games will kick off at noon. (The -Ohio State game traditionally kicks off at noon, and its annually high ratings probably were the genesis of Fox's idea to put the biggest game it could get on at noon every week.)
That noon ET time slot — which before the advent of Fox's Big Noon Kickoff was a dumping ground for uninteresting games for most of the season — enrages fans with tickets who would prefer more time to tailgate. It's not beloved by coaches, who would prefer the better atmosphere of a late-afternoon or night game to improve home field advantage and to wow recruits. It is beloved by Fox executives, who have ridden it to millions of viewers. Last season, it was the most-watched network time slot. This season, it has serious competition from the ABC primetime slot.
Last season was the final year of the SEC's deal with CBS. Now the SEC's rights are owned exclusively by Disney and spread across ABC and the ESPN family of networks. CBS, meanwhile, is fully engaged with the Big Ten after one season split between the Big Ten and SEC. Disney's decision to stock ABC by creating a block of two SEC games (3:30 ET and 7:30 ET) combined with a third game at noon ET that could be from the SEC or from another league that Disney owns rights to has been hugely successful. Last week, the three most viewed college football games were – (7.9 million viewers on ABC at 7:30 p.m. ET), – Ole Miss (7.1 million viewers on ABC at 3:30 p.m. ET) and – (3.7 million viewers on ABC at noon ET).
The previous week, Ohio State- Penn State (9.8 million viewers) won the week while kicking off at noon on Fox. Jack asked how the Big Ten TV contract works with Fox, CBS, NBC and the Fox-owned Big Ten Network. The answer is a draft that takes place in the spring. Each network gets an assigned number of weeks in which they get to pick first. The networks then hold a draft to determine which actual weeks they will choose first.
Because it pays the most, Fox gets the first three picks. It isn't a state secret that the first choice every year is the final week of the regular season. The network picks a week and not a game, but it's usually easy to tell which game it's targeting. In this case, this pick allows Fox to get the Michigan-Ohio State game, which is the most proven ratings winner in all of college football.
Fox Sports' president of insight and analytics Michael Mulvihill explained the process with Fox host Joel Klatt on a podcast in June . "It's basically the world's greatest fantasy football draft, but it takes $500 million to play," Mulvihill joked to Klatt.
Mulvihill told Klatt that Fox chose week two (Texas at Michigan) second and traded its third pick for more picks later. Mulvihill didn't elaborate on what happened next, but it seems safe to assume NBC wound up with the third pick and used it on week seven. The showcase game that day was Ohio State-, but Penn State- also could have been attractive had USC's season gone differently.
Mulvihill explained that Fox's commitment to that noon window affected how it handled that choice. The two best games that week were both on the west coast. Fox would have had to swap windows with another network to broadcast a later kickoff. So it traded the pick.
NBC got the thriller between the Buckeyes and Ducks and broadcast it at 7:30 p.m. ET (4:30 p.m. local). CBS got an overtime thriller between the Nittany Lions and Trojans at the Coliseum. Fox broadcast Iowa's 40-16 win against Washington at noon ET.
Mulvihill explained that Fox gave up choosing that week so it could get week . That Saturday (Nov. 2) was three days before the presidential election, so it promised a bonanza of political ads — which, if the networks use dynamic pricing, probably cost a fortune. It could choose Ohio State-Penn State or Oregon-Michigan depending on how the teams' seasons had gone. Needless to say, Ohio State-Penn State was the obvious choice when the decision was made in late October.
This is a long way of saying that this has been a financially fruitful venture for Fox, so don't expect the network to embrace any calls for changing the format in order to float kickoff times to different windows to satisfy various constituents. Big Ten schools are cashing the checks, and Fox is happy. At least most of Fox. Klatt's broadcast partner Gus Johnson sounded as if he was dying a little inside while calling the Purdue-Ohio State game Saturday.
Why does it always seem to be Ohio State? Because Ohio State draws eyeballs even when the opponent is lackluster. The blowout of Purdue last week drew 3.5 million viewers. So when Fox doesn't have the first choice and someone else selects a game that doesn't involve Ohio State, Fox probably will snap up the Buckeyes.
Klatt took to social media this week to defend his network, but it didn't appease the Ohio State and Penn State fans sick of seeing their best games played at noon. (Penn State's White Out, meanwhile, got shunted to Peacock for the Washington game.) Klatt reminded fans that Michigan got most of the noon kickoffs last season as it marched to the national title.
Will Fox adjust its strategy? Probably not. Disney isn't trying to schedule blockbusters at noon. Meanwhile, it probably isn't wise for Fox to schedule its best games against the best SEC games on ABC at 3:30 and 7:30.
The Big Ten's current TV deal doesn't end until after the 2029 season. If you're a fan of a good Big Ten team that isn't based on the west coast, plan on including eggs on your tailgate menu for a lot of the season.
From DanDear Andy,
Is it realistic at all to think conferences would go to competitively balanced schedules? Right now, it seems random. Could we see an approach where:
That would be wonderful, and it might offer a solution for the SEC if it doesn't opt to go to nine conference games. (The league wants more money from Disney to play more conference games.)
This year's SEC schedule feels quite imbalanced. Georgia has played a brutal road schedule — including Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss — while Texas has played only one team (Georgia) currently ranked in the College Football Playoff selection committee's top 25. The Longhorns are scheduled to play one more ranked team (Texas A&M), while Georgia returns home this week to play yet another top-10 team (Tennessee).
If the SEC wants to stay at eight, perhaps competitively balancing the schedules might eliminate that kind of disparity. Of course, in the transfer portal/NIL era, fortunes can change so fast that a schedule that looks balanced two years out might be either brutal or pillowy soft when the games actually get played. So that might be a fool's errand.
This is a drawback to having such huge conferences. It's almost impossible for the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 or SEC to make schedules that are fair to every team. And the volatility of the sport makes the process even more difficult. Several ACC programs probably thought they were getting a break catching in its first year in the league. Instead, the Mustangs are undefeated in ACC play. learned that the hard way, because the Cardinals had to play SMU, — as well as an ACC-mandated date with Notre Dame. Florida State was the only other of the league's 17 members to face that foursome.
Dan offers some good ideas, but I'm not sure how workable they'll be. Plus, if the SEC can't figure out a way to play Texas-Texas A&M every year, then it's time to rethink the entire enterprise.
From Sean in Dallas: In the first CFP rankings the committee had Georgia ranked one spot ahead of Miami. Then both teams lost a game (Georgia to a ranked opponent and Miami to an unranked opponent). now they have Miami ranked 3 spots ahead of Georgia. what am I missing?
#MathAin'tMathin'
Sean, I wish I could explain. But I can't. Fortunately, committee chair Warde Manuel (Michigan's athletic director) was asked this very question Tuesday night. Here is his answer in full:
Well, the obvious is the first loss for Miami and the second loss for Georgia. That obviously played a factor into it.
Georgia Tech is coming on. They now have both their quarterbacks playing in the game. They were on the road. Georgia's losses were both on the road, as well.
So it came down to factoring in those games, a close game that Miami lost to Georgia Tech and then a decisive win by Ole Miss against Georgia away. So we just factored everything in and took a look at the competitiveness.
Both teams are very good from our perspective, but based on the season as well as what they did last week, that's how we made the judgment of how they fell.
Georgia, obviously with two losses, having lost both to Alabama and to Ole Miss, both with two losses, they obviously in the mind of committee, Alabama and Ole Miss were going to be ahead of Georgia because of the head-to-head and the similar record.
I recommend the Caesar dressing with word salad, but I don't think that will make this go down any easier for Georgia fans.
A Random RankingReader Juan has asked me to "rank the Batman villains that need their own show now that the Penguin show kicked ass." This is a fine idea. If you haven't seen The Penguin on HBO, it's spectacular. Colin Farrell and the team that transforms him into Oswald Cobb (I know it's supposed to be Cobblepot) deserve all the Emmys. This list would start with Harley Quinn, but she has a great animated show on Max and Margot Robbie has portrayed her pretty much perfectly in two movies. Unless someone can convince Robbie to do a series, it's probably wise not to mess with perfection. Meanwhile, between Heath Ledger and Mark Hamill's Jokers, that character probably has already been played perfectly. So here's the list of who should get the gritty cable drama treatment. (Sorry, Killer Croc. Too much CGI required.)
