Fox Was Willing to Move Ohio State–Texas from Noon to Prime Time. Texas Said No

Texas shut off the idea of playing Ohio State under the lights.

Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Michael Mulvihill confirmed to Front Office Sports that the network had given the green light to Ohio State’s idea of moving the defending national champion’s much-anticipated Week 1 matchup against Texas from Saturday’s noon time slot to prime time on Sunday night.

Mulvihill revealed that Ohio State AD Ross Bjork approached Fox with the idea. Since 2019, Fox has been putting its top Big Ten or Big 12 game of the week at noon—labeling the window Big Noon—in a strategy to maximize viewership as the games would no longer be competing with the highest-profile matchups on other networks, which traditionally air later in the day. In this case, it would have been possible to move the game to Sunday because the matchup will take place before the NFL season kicks off. 

Mulvihill said Fox anticipated a “minor” viewership loss if the Ohio State–Texas game moved to Sunday night, because it would be competing with Notre Dame–Miami on ABC, but that Fox would’ve been willing to make the move to accommodate a key partner in Ohio State. However, as 247 Sports first reported, Texas put the kibosh on the idea. 

Fox’s Big Noon strategy, which has been an enormous ratings success, has been the subject of much debate, particularly around the Ohio State program. The fans who are vocal on social media prefer the games to start later to allow for more tailgating time prior to kickoff. There is also a school of thought that home field advantage is greater when the fans are more lubricated and anticipation has been building throughout the day, which, combined with not playing the following week on short rest, would inform Texas’s decision to block the schedule change. 

The older alumni donor class that operates less in the public eye prefers to be able to drive home from games while it’s still light out. (I’ve previously reported that Ohio State and Michigan have it written into their Big Ten TV contracts that they have the right to refuse to play home games at night after daylight saving time in early November.) 

Anecdotally, coaches like playing earlier games because it means they don’t have to figure out how to keep track of their players all day, and last year Ohio State players expressed a preference for competing in the Big Noon window.