The single piece of news flowed from three different sources Monday morning over the span of 46 minutes, first from the Big Ten, then Michigan State and, finally, USC. Each reveal generated more bewilderment and outrage than the one before until, hours later, the reaction approached meltdown levels.
An 8 p.m. Pacific Time kickoff for the Spartans?
Yes, Michigan State fans in East Lansing and across the Midwest must wait until 11 p.m. local time for the Sept. 20 kickoff. Watching the entire game will require staying awake until at least 2 a.m. The players and coaches won’t return to campus until mid-morning Sunday.
While seen as an affront to the Spartans, the sport and the free world — to be clear: USC fans aren’t happy, either — the kickoff time makes perfect sense for one of the three media companies paying handsomely for the rights to broadcast Big Ten games for the next five years.
We’ll explain the particulars of the process momentarily, because there’s a larger issue to address. The outrage exposed a lingering, deeply-flawed belief among college football fans that the schools actually have some control over when they play.
Within the Big Ten, that authority lies with Fox, NBC and CBS, which are paying roughly $1 billion annually through the 2030 season. (Technically, Fox owns the Big Ten’s media rights and has sub-licensed packages of games for CBS and NBC.)
The 14 continuing members voted to expand to the West Coast in 2022-23 knowing full well the travel and time zones would be inconvenient, to put it kindly, for the athletes and fans. But every school sold its soul exchange for truckloads of cash. (That’s more true of USC and UCLA than Oregon and Washington.)
Contrary to public opinion, the networks are not the bad guys here. Fox, CBS and NBC work with the conference on dates and times whenever possible — and there are mitigation terms in the contracts — but ultimately must make the best business decisions possible with the inventory available in a given week. They are simply executing on the rights in the contracts.
And with the late kickoff on Sept. 20, Fox is leaning into an enticing, rarely used option.
Let’s piece together the sequence of events that led to Michigan State-USC in the 8 p.m. window:
— Clearly, CBS had the first pick in the weekly draft and opted for Michigan-Nebraska in the 12:30 p.m. window. We know this because the kickoff time was announced in May, which only happens when the network with the top pick identifies its game in advance.
— The second selection obviously belonged to NBC, which chose No. 9 Illinois at No. 22 Indiana for the 4:30 p.m. window. (Matchups involving ranked teams are always intriguing.)
— That left Fox with the third selection.
The 9 a.m. Pacific (i.e., Big Noon) window is always the network’s preferred time slot, but there were limited options: Ohio State and Penn State are idle on Sept. 20; the Wisconsin-Maryland game evidently wasn’t deemed appealing enough; and West Coast home games can’t start at 9 a.m. local time.
(Fox filled the Big Noon slot with the best available Big 12 game, No. 21 Texas Tech at No. 20 Utah.)
Because of exclusivity stipulations in the media contract, Fox is prohibited from airing games opposite the CBS and NBC broadcast windows at 12:30 and 4:30.
Given the circumstances, the best option for Fox was the late window (8 p.m. Pacific), with Michigan State-USC seen as the better matchup than Oregon State-Oregon.
For all the stress placed on the Spartans, it’s worth noting they have a bye the week after USC, so their mid-morning return to campus will not disrupt preparation for the ensuing game.
Also worth noting: Although details of the Big Ten’s media rights contract are private, we have confirmed the deal includes restrictions on the number of times across the lifetime of the deal that the 14 continuing members can be scheduled for a late game on the West Coast. (For those unaware, the Eastern and Central Time Zone teams play no more than one game on the West Coast each season.)
As frustrating as the 8 p.m. Pacific kickoff might be for Michigan State and USC fans, it actually works well for Fox’s over-the-air network.
The experiment began a few years ago, always with two West Coast teams and usually with 7:30 p.m. kickoffs: Stanford-USC drew the assignment back in 2021; and Fresno State-USC got the treatment the following year.
It worked well enough for Fox to ramp up the frequency in 2023, the final year of the Pac-12.
That season, Fox aired three games on its broadcast network in the 7:30 window: Stanford-USC, USC-Arizona State and USC-Oregon. They averaged 2.46 million viewers, according to data on the SportsMediaWatch website.
Fox also aired three games on FS1 at 7:30 p.m. during the 2023 season: Oregon State-Arizona State, Arizona State-Washington and UCLA-Arizona. They averaged 764,000 viewers.
Then came realignment, which changed how the networks programmed their inventory in the Pacific Time Zone.
Fox aired one Big Ten game in the Saturday 8 p.m. window last fall, but it involved two West Coast teams: Oregon-UCLA generated an audience of 1.5 million viewers.
There was a Friday night game involving an eastern team in that broadcast window, however: Rutgers-USC drew 2.01 million viewers. (Traveling on a short week, the Scarlet Knights got thumped 42-20 but had a bye the following week.)
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With realignment, the only competition for Fox in the late window comes when ESPN airs games from the seven western campuses now in the ACC (Cal and Stanford) and Big 12 (Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Colorado and Brigham Young).
On Sept. 20, for example, the Michigan State-USC game will be up against Wyoming-Colorado.
Will Fox air more games on the West Coast campuses at 8 p.m. that feature visiting teams from the eastern half of the country? It won’t become a weekly occurrence, we have been told, but it could very well happen again this season — perhaps several times this season and in future seasons. The networks love windows with little or no competition.
While there are mitigation measures for the individual schools in the media contracts, we don’t know if there are restrictions on the total number of 8 p.m. broadcasts Fox can air in a given season. Or that NBC can air at 7:30 p.m., for that matter.
(The Big Ten Network doesn’t face the same exclusivity restrictions as Fox, so games on the West Coast that feature visitors from long distances can air throughout the afternoon.)
Essentially, the immediate fate of West Coast night games involving eastern teams lies with the Big Ten, Fox and NBC. There’s a shared responsibility to manage the windows reasonably and fairly.
Of course, that doesn’t mean every school will be content with its kickoff time each week. Frustration is inevitable, especially for $1 billion a year.
*** Previously published Hotline articles on sports media:
— Dave Portnoy and Ohio State is a dangerous game for Fox
— The Big 12’s social media game is clever, proactive and undaunted
— Pac-12 partners with The CW on media rights for 2026+
— Where (and when) to find Big 12 football games this season
— Low ratings, NFL conflicts make it clear: CFP calendar needs to change
— Thanksgiving Eve is an open broadcast window the Big 12, Pac-12 should exploit
— Fox’s friday night strategy and the future of sports on TV
— Explaining the Big Ten’s TV selection process
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