• Loading stock data...
Friday, July 4, 2025

TV Networks Are Programming College Football’s Future: What’s Next

  • The final Power 5 conference championship weekend begins today.
  • Media rights money is shifting college football unlike ever before.
Syndication: Austin American-Statesman
Exclusive

Billionaire Bill Ackman Prepares for ‘Once in a Lifetime’ Tennis Match in Newport

Ackman says he's "peaking next week" at the Hall of Fame Open.
Read Now
July 4, 2025 |

College football entered this conference championship weekend in rare circumstances: with major postseason implications at every Power 5 title game. 

Heading into the weekend, seven of the top eight teams in the College Football Playoff rankings were given the opportunity to make their case — and potentially seal their fate — with a win in their respective games.

But a year from now, with an influx of new money coming into the sport, things are bound to look drastically different.

Realignment is consolidating the top conferences to a Power 4 whose championship games will no doubt be impacted by the CFP’s expansion to 12 teams. Conferences are changing how they distribute money, creating a bigger divide between the haves and have-nots — and unsurprisingly, it’s all driven by increasingly lucrative media rights deals from college football’s biggest broadcasters.

Now, the question is: Will the upcoming changes put the sport in a better or worse position?

The Broadcast Shuffle

Saturday will mark the last SEC championship game broadcast on CBS Sports. Next year, Disney will start paying more than $700 million annually to be the SEC’s exclusive broadcast partner, with most of its top games headed to ABC.

But CBS will quickly be back in the spotlight, airing the 2024 Big Ten championship game as part of the conference’s new $7 billion set of deals. The conference title game will also rotate annually between Fox and NBC.

The Big 12 is sticking with its longtime partners in Fox and ESPN — with a new $2 billion-plus deal beginning in 2025 — but next fall the conference will expand its reach with four new teams. 

“You’re looking to appeal across the country,” Lee Berke, the president and CEO of consultancy LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media, told Front Office Sports. “These conferences increasingly are becoming national conferences.”

That sentiment applies to the ACC, which is adding California and Stanford at a discounted price. And it applies to the Big Ten, which brings on Oregon and Washington, each of which is set to receive somewhere north of $30 million annually from Fox Sports instead of the standard (much higher) Big Ten revenue distribution.

But college football’s makeover is certainly not limited to broadcast affiliations.

More ‘Juicy Matchups’

Next year’s conference championship weekend will be unlike any other before it, thanks to two big changes.

Each of the Power 4 conferences is eliminating its divisions structure, allowing for title game matchups like Michigan-Ohio State in the Big Ten, or Alabama-Auburn in the SEC. 

Earlier this fall, CBS Sports executive vice president of programming Dan Weinberg told FOS he was excited by that potential for “really sexy … and juicy matchups,” specifically in the Big Ten. But would those theoretical star-studded games actually provide the drama Weinberg is suggesting? 

The new 12-team CFP format may add a new — and complicating — plot twist: Teams could have already secured postseason berths by the time they play in conference championship games. That issue has caught the attention of some conference commissioners, like the ACC’s Jim Phillips and the Big Ten’s Tony Petitti, who admitted this week that title games will need to be reevaluated.

But if conference championship games in 2024 and beyond prove to be unattractive products, eliminating them won’t be that simple — they’re influential parts of most conference’s media rights deals.

A source familiar with college sports media rights deals told FOS that this is more of a long-term problem, noting that any theoretical change would most likely come under new contracts. The Big Ten and Big 12 deals run through 2030, while the SEC and ACC have contracts through ’34 and ’36, respectively.

Neal Pilson, who served as the president of CBS Sports in the 1980s and ’90s, believes the championship game issue is not a serious problem and that the industry will work it out, especially as more CFP broadcast inventory becomes available in 2026 and beyond. 

“From a television point of view, it really is a neutral equation, because if you don’t play [those championship games], we don’t pay you, but we’ll pay more for the playoffs,” Pilson, who now runs a communications firm and is a sports management lecturer at Columbia University, told FOS.

No matter what happens, broadcast partners appear to be the big winners.

Four Better Than Five?

The dissolution of the Pac-12, one of the oldest conferences, may be tough to swallow for some college sports fans — but not for media companies, particularly college football’s duopoly of ESPN and Fox.

“The reality is they both benefit from the consolidation of the conferences,” Berke said. The incoming schools from the Mountain and Pacific time zones simply provide more “content to be exploited.”

The anonymous source who spoke to FOS took that a step further, saying: “I’m not sure it’s hurt anybody that the Pac-12 disappeared.”

Plenty of obstacles lie ahead over the next 12 months. But when the 2024 conference championship weekend arrives, college football fans will get their first major glimpse into how realignment, network shuffling, and the expanded CFP will impact the future of the sport.

For now, there’s one final ride to enjoy college football as we know it.

Linkedin
Whatsapp
Copy Link
Link Copied
Link Copied

What to Read

Jul 2, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani (17) heads to the dugout prior to the first inning against the Chicago White Sox at Dodger Stadium.

MLB Changes Are ‘Showing Great Results’: Former CFO

Big stars playing in major markets “make a real difference.”

3,000 Hot Dogs, $20K in Prizes: Behind the Nathan’s Eating Contest

Nathan’s serves up thousands of hot dogs and $20,000 in prize money.

Hot Dog Maven George Shea on Chestnut Comeback and Investor Interest

George Shea runs a real estate PR firm and Major League Eating.
Dec 29, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Cooper Rush (10) passes the ball against the Philadelphia Eagles during the first quarter at Lincoln Financial Field.

California AG Says Daily Fantasy Sports Are Illegal

The AG rejected arguments that DFS are games of skill, not chance.

Featured Today

Geoffrey Esper Can’t Catch a Break at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest

“Hot dogs is not one of my favorite competitions of the year.”
June 29, 2025

The Battle Over Wimbledon’s Ambitious Expansion Plan

A classic NIMBY standoff on one of the most hallowed grounds in sports.
Seattle Rough & Tumble
June 28, 2025

Women’s Sports Bars Are on the Rise. Survival Isn’t Guaranteed

Some women’s sports bars are cashing in. Others are clawing for funding.
June 27, 2025

Shitposters Have Taken the Reins of Pro Sports’ Official Voices

Meet the social media pros turning sports teams into internet trolls.

Everything You Need to Know About EA’s Return to College Basketball Video..

There hasn’t been a college basketball game in more than 15 years.
July 1, 2025

Big Ten Commish Still Pushes for 4 Auto CFP Bids in 16-Team..

The conference wants four guaranteed spots in the Playoff.
Ohio State
July 1, 2025

Collectives Funnel $20 Million to College Athletes on Last Day Before Revenue..

Collectives frontloaded payments just before the revenue sharing era begins July 1.
Sponsored

Hottest Matchups Following NFL Schedule Release

The NFL released the 2025 regular-season schedule, and anticipation is already building in the ticket marketplace with four months to go.
June 30, 2025

College Sports Revenue-Sharing Underway As More Changes Loom

July 1 marks the first day schools can directly pay players.
June 30, 2025

Pac-12 Hits Football Membership Threshold With Texas State Entry

The school is paying $5 million to leave the Sun Belt Conference.
Mar 23, 2025; Raleigh, NC, USA; Baylor Bears guard Jeremy Roach (3) reacts after a play during the first half against the Duke Blue Devils in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Lenovo Center.
June 26, 2025

Power Four Put Finishing Touches on How Revenue Sharing Era Will Work

The agreement stipulates that schools can’t sue to challenge any terms of the settlement.
June 26, 2025

Pac-12 Rebuild Nears Completion With 2026 Texas State Addition

The Sun Belt school is likely joining the Pac-12 in 2026.