ESPN’s ambitions to launch a college football RedZone could be missing a major piece of the puzzle.

Fox Sports is unlikely to license its Big Ten or Big 12 games to ESPN for the potential package as it would cannibalize its own offerings, multiple industry sources told Front Office Sports. Fox would require significant ownership in the venture to have any willingness to participate, a source said. 

Spokespeople for Fox and ESPN declined to comment.

Fox airs a weekly Big Noon game on Saturdays with its best Big Ten or Big 12 game of the week, and also jointly owns Big Ten Network with the conference. ESPN would also need CBS and NBC on board if it wanted full Big Ten rights. Fox, CBS, and NBC collectively pay the Big Ten about $1 billion per year for game rights. (In addition to the SEC and its split Big 12 rights, ESPN has most of the rights to ACC football.)

It’s the latest development in a yearslong battle between Fox and ESPN for supremacy over big-time college football.

In 2019, Fox launched Big Noon Kickoff to compete with ESPN’s College GameDay. GameDay later added firepower with Nick Saban and Pat McAfee, and this season Big Noon is adding Dave Portnoy and Barstool Sports. 

They now both have controlling broadcast stakes in the two “super conferences” of the SEC and Big Ten. In recent years, the SEC—for which ESPN now has exclusive rights—added Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12, where ESPN and Fox share rights. Then, the Big Ten nabbed USC and UCLA (and later Oregon and Washington) from the Pac-12, where ESPN and Fox previously shared rights before the conference collapsed. 

Fox bankrolled the additions of Oregon and Washington, FOS reported at the time. The Big Ten, which works closely with Fox, had also exited its long-standing partnership with ESPN in favor of new deals with CBS and NBC in 2023. 

The RedZone question is still a ways off. ESPN is slated to acquire the trademark from the NFL as part of the pact to assume control of NFL Network, but the deal is not expected to close for at least a year.

The decision by Twins executive chairman Joe Pohlad and his family not to sell majority control of the club has recent precedent to two other MLB franchises, and the historic parallels there do not suggest a promising road ahead for Minnesota. 

Nearly a year after putting the club up for sale and then nearing a deal, the Pohlad family said this week it would instead retain control. That about-face mirrors recent reversals by the Nationals and Angels in which both teams’ owners formally put the clubs up for sale, hired investment bankers, and received offers—only to ultimately decide to stay. 

Each team is certainly within its rights to change its mind, but neither the Nationals nor the Angels have seen strong results on or off the field since those decisions. 

Washington posted a 91-loss season in 2024 after Mark Lerner said early last year that he would keep the club, and another losing season is all but assured this year. Lerner fired two top baseball leaders last month, longtime president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez, and the Nationals are now positioning for a long-term rebuild. 

Additionally, the club’s local media future is unsettled after the settlement of the long-running MASN dispute, and the 17-year-old Nationals Park is beginning to show significant signs of wear. 

In Anaheim, a similar situation unfolded when Arte Moreno said in early 2023 that he had “unfinished business.” Since then, the Angels have posted two losing seasons with potential for a third, and lost superstar Shohei Ohtani in free agency. The club plays in MLB’s fourth-oldest ballpark, Angel Stadium, and the facility has not received the recent upgrades the three older ones have had. A possible land deal with the city of Anaheim for a potential new venue collapsed amid local political corruption. 

Stacked Deck of Issues

A key difference for the Twins compared to the Nationals and Angels is that they are bringing in two limited partnership groups to aid what is the league’s No. 4 entity in ownership tenure. Those still-unannounced investors will play key roles in reducing Minnesota’s debt load, even without having a pathway to control.

Still, the Twins have no shortage of issues that present a particularly tough path. Among them:

• Fan malaise: Target Field attendance is down 7% this season, and could set the lowest mark in the ballpark’s 15-year history, with the exception of the 2021 season impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Competitive regression: For many years, a competitive force beyond their market size, the Twins have sunk to become a losing club, have little marquee talent, have a history of low spending, and the club recently gutted much of its roster at the trade deadline—furthering the attendance issues. 
• Media uncertainty: Like the Nationals and many other clubs, the Twins are navigating historic disruption across the media industry. Minnesota opted in to MLB’s in-house local media model, and will be looking to recoup lost revenue as MLB commissioner Rob Manfred tries to reconstruct the league’s media business.  
• Labor strife: While affecting all 30 clubs, and not just the Twins, growing discord between MLB and the MLB Players Association threatens the 2027 season. 

In part because of these labor and media issues in particular, just five other MLB clubs have sold in the last nine years: the Orioles, Mets, Royals, Marlins, and Mariners. A separate, multistage sale of the White Sox is underway. There is growing sentiment in some baseball circles that owners believe a push for a salary cap, while combative, would boost franchise values.

Tennessee continues to lead the way in creating new revenue streams around its top athletic programs, as the business of college sports keeps shifting.

As part of a new apparel deal with Adidas that will begin in the 2026–27 season, the German sportswear brand will also help fund NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals for the school’s athletes. Tennessee has been a Nike school since 2014, and will still rep the Swoosh during this next academic year.

The unprecedented apparel deal comes after Tennessee announced it would increase football ticket prices by 10% this season, calling the spike a “talent fee” that would be allocated toward revenue-sharing.

NCAA schools are allowed to share up to $20.5 million of revenue with athletes this school year (a number that will go up in future years), which has made the future of NIL deals uncertain. The newly formed College Sports Commission is regulating NIL deals worth more than $600, in an effort to curb pay-for-play practices that have dominated college sports since NIL was first allowed in 2021.

Under these new regulations, deep-pocketed apparel partners like Adidas and Nike could be instrumental in getting more cash into players’ bank accounts. Adidas executive Chris McGuire in a statement said the Tennessee deal “is establishing a new standard for investment in NIL” and that it “will sustain UT’s powerful athletics program.” 

Welcome to the New Age

This isn’t the first time Adidas has taken advantage of the new college sports landscape. 

Last season, the Three Stripes signed eventual Heisman Trophy winner Cam Ward to a NIL deal that integrated seamlessly, since the quarterback was already wearing Adidas gear at Miami. 

Ward went on to become the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft and has a professional endorsement deal with Adidas heading into his rookie season with the Titans.