Initial college football broadcasts on the Fox network were limited to selected bowl games, beginning with the Cotton Bowl Classic from 1999 to 2014. From 2007 to 2010, Fox broadcast the Bowl Championship Series (excluding games played at the Rose Bowl stadium, whose rights were held by ABC under a separate agreement), branded as the BCS on Fox.
In 2012, Fox began to air a regular schedule of Saturday college football games during the regular season. Fox primarily airs coverage of the Big Ten and Big 12 and holds alternating rights to the Big Ten championship game. Since 2020, Fox has aired games from the Mountain West Conference (including Boise State home games, and the Mountain West championship game). Fox also holds rights to the Holiday Bowl. As of the 2024 season, coverage on the main Fox network currently consists of four regular weekly windows, including a Friday prime time game, a Saturday afternoon doubleheader (with the early game—branded as Big Noon Saturday—considered Fox's flagship game of the week), on most weeks a Saturday prime time game and on select weeks a Saturday late night game.
Coverage history
FSN coverage (1996–2019)
In order to better compete with national networks like ESPN, since its inception the Fox Sports Networks (FSN) has carried college football games from the then Pac-10 conference and Big 12 conference. These telecasts were distributed to individual Fox Sports Networks and other affiliates. In 2011 FSN added a package of Conference USA football games.[1] Many of these games were aired exclusively, aired as a simulcast, or aired on tape delay on Fox College Sports.
Pac-12 games moved from FSN to Fox, FX and eventually FS1 in 2012.[2] The C-USA left Fox Sports entirely in 2016.[3] FSN affiliates continued to largely hold the third-tier rights to many Big 12 teams until 2020, when ESPN+ acquired the tier 3 media rights to all but two of the conference's members (with the only holdouts being the Oklahoma Sooners, who maintained their contract with Fox Sports Oklahoma, and the Texas Longhorns, who have a long-term deal with ESPN and IMG College to operate its Longhorn Network).[4][5]
Fox acquired its first college football telecast in 1998, when it obtained the broadcast rights to the annual Cotton Bowl Classic held each January on (eventually, the day after) New Year's Day; the first game to be shown on the network as part of the deal was held on January 1, 1999. Fox renewed its contract to carry the game in 2010, in a four-year agreement that ran through the 2013 NCAA college football season.
Fox lost the rights to the Cotton Bowl to ESPN for the 2015 edition, as ESPN holds the television contract to all six bowl games that encompass the College Football Playoff system under a twelve-year deal worth over $7.3 billion. The Cotton Bowl was the only game among the six that was not already broadcast by ESPN.[10][11]
Bowl Championship Series, launch of Big Ten Network (2006–2009)
ESPN, which is majority owned by ABC's corporate parent The Walt Disney Company and serves as the producer for all of ABC's sports coverage, would displace Fox outright as the broadcaster of the BCS beginning in the 2010–11 season.[15] This left Fox with only the Cotton Bowl Classic as the sole college football game, to which it held the television rights until the 2013–14 season.
Expansion of national regular season coverage, Big Ten contract (2011–2019)
Beginning with the 2011 season, sister cable channel FX began airing a "game of the week" on Saturdays featuring matchups from the Big 12, Conference USA, and Pac-12.[16] The Fox network also obtained the rights to air the Big Ten Conference's new football championship game beginning that season and running through 2016, as part of Fox Sports' partnership with the conference on the Big Ten Network.[17] Fox also acquired bi-yearly rights to the inaugural Pac-12 Football Championship Game, alternating with ESPN/ABC.[18]
Beginning with the 2012 season, Fox added regular season games on Saturdays to its lineup; it broadcast eight afternoon games and twelve nighttime games throughout the season, with the latter telecasts airing as part of a new strategy by the network to carry more sports programming on Saturday nights during prime time. FS1 replaced FX's coverage upon its launch in August 2013, though some overflow coverage has aired on FX occasionally when warranted; since 2017, overflow coverage has been carried FS2, and before that on Fox Business Network, which usually carries paid programming on Saturday afternoons of little consequence to pre-emption.[19]
Fox's coverage of the 2015 season opened with a game on FS1 featuring the Michigan Wolverines at the Utah Utes. As the first game featuring new head coach Jim Harbaugh, the season premiere was promoted with a touring "HarBus"—decorated with a sweater and khakis in imitation of Harbaugh's on-field wardrobe—travelling to Salt Lake City for the game, accompanied by a group of "HarBros" dressed like Harbaugh. The tour concluded at Salt Lake City's Grand America Hotel for game day; the bus itself was barred from entering the University of Utah's campus.[20][21]
On July 12, 2016, the San Francisco 49ers announced that they had taken over the Foster Farms Bowl (now known as the Redbox Bowl), and had reached a four-year deal to move the game to Fox and Fox Deportes beginning in 2016.[22] It was also reported by Sports Business Journal that Fox was pursuing a share of the Big Ten's primary football rights.[23] Fox began streaming select college football games in 360-degree video for the 2016 season.[24][25] The following year, FS1 also acquired rights to the Holiday Bowl, ending a long-standing relationship between the game and ESPN.[26]
On July 24, 2017, the Big Ten Conference announced that Fox and ESPN had acquired rights to its games under a six-year deal beginning in the 2017 season. The contract also includes an extension of Fox's contract to operate Big Ten Network through 2032.[27] The deal gives Fox the first choice of games on most weeks, including marquee games such as the Michigan/Ohio State game—which had been a fixture of ABC's college football schedule for over a half-decade. The game will remain in its traditional noon slot on the last day of the Big Ten's regular season.[28][29]
Fox promoted its addition of Big Ten football with promotional campaigns focusing on each team; a Children of the Corn themed commercial focusing on the Nebraska Cornhuskers was pulled after complaints by the school.[30]
Big Noon Saturday, Mountain West contract (2019–2022)
Prior to the 2019 season, Fox lost its rights to future Big 12 championship games to ESPN as part of an expansion of its rights to the conference. Fox declined to bid on the 2019, 2021, and 2023 games.[31]
In the 2019 season, Fox introduced a new flagship Noon ET window known as Big Noon Saturday. The games are accompanied by a pre-game show, Big Noon Kickoff.[32][33][34] A Fox executive stated that the network's highest-rated games were often those with a Noon kickoff, and that the network also wanted to avoid competition from other highly viewed windows such as the SEC on CBS and ABC's Saturday Night Football.[35] The new emphasis on early games proved successful: in the first weeks of the 2019 season, Fox had the highest-rated game in the timeslot on multiple occasions. This pattern continued into subsequent seasons, with Big Noon Saturday overtaking the SEC on CBS as having the highest average viewership in the 2021 season, and the Michigan/Ohio State game (which saw Michigan end an eight-game losing streak in the rivalry) being the highest-rated regular-season game of the 2021 season, and most-watched regular-season game since the Alabama–LSU game in 2019.[36][35]
Due to the early kickoff times, the package has faced criticism for having undue impacts on teams not based in the Eastern Time Zone (ET), including from University of Oklahoma Athletics Director Joe Castiglione (who felt that a Noon ET kickoff for a 2021 game against Nebraska, marking the 50th anniversary of their 1971 "Game of the Century", would diminish its profile), and Stanford head coach David Shaw (who, in particular, criticized Fox Sports for scheduling noon kickoffs involving visiting Pac-12 teams).[37][38] In August 2021, University of Oklahoma president Joe Harroz cited criticism of Big Noon Saturday when discussing the Sooners' proposed move to the SEC, arguing that the Big 12 conference would be "last in line" in negotiating new media deals, and that "our fans talk about that. It also matters to student-athletes. When those who go before you, in terms of negotiations for 2025 and beyond, if those premiere slots are already taken up, it impacts things in a material way. It translates into disadvantages in recruiting the top talent, disadvantages for our student-athletes and a detriment to the fan experience."[39]
On January 9, 2020, the Mountain West Conference announced that its next top-tier basketball and football contracts would be split between CBS Sports and Fox Sports under a six-year deal, with Fox replacing ESPN. Fox holds rights to 23 games per-season, including the conference championship and all Boise State home games (since 2012, as part of concessions to remain in the conference, the Mountain West has allowed Boise State's home games to be sold as a separate package from the remainder of its media rights). CBS Sports Network will remain the main broadcaster for the conference outside of these games.[40][41][42]
In the 2022 season, ESPN sub-licensed one additional Big Ten football game to Fox, as compensation to release Joe Buck from his contract with the network to join ESPN and Monday Night Football.[43]
Big Ten and Big 12 renewal, Friday-night games (2023–present)
In August 2022, Fox renewed its rights to the Big Ten under a seven-year deal beginning in the 2023 season. Under the new contract, Fox, CBS, and NBC will hold rights to Noon, 3:30 p.m. ET, and prime time games respectively. There will be a larger number of games on the Fox broadcast network, and an option to air "premier" Big Ten games in other timeslots after Oregon, USC, UCLA, and Washington move to the conference in 2024. Fox will air four Big Ten championship games in odd-numbered years over the length of the contract.[44][45] In October 2022, Fox also renewed its rights to the Big 12 with a six-year extension through 2030–31.[46]
As part of the agreements, Fox also gained additional access to place microphones on players and coaches in Big Ten and Big 12 games beginning in the 2023 season. After having previously shared its in-game presentation with the NFL on Fox, Fox College Football also adopted a dedicated graphics package for its broadcasts, although the revamp faced criticism from viewers on social media.[47][48][49]
For the 2024 season, with the departure of WWE SmackDown to USA Network, Fox introduced a second weekly primetime game known as Fox College Football Friday, beginning September 13; the package draws primarily from the Big Ten and Big 12. One game between Rutgers at USC on October 25 was scheduled after Fox's coverage of game 1 of the 2024 World Series, with an 11 p.m. ET (8:00 p.m. PT) kickoff; the game would begin on FS1 due to game 1 going to extra innings.[50][51] Ohio State and Michigan's spring games also aired on Fox, marking the first time a spring game had aired on over-the-air television.[52] In May 2024, it was announced that Fox had acquired two Pac-12 football home games involving the conference's remaining members, Oregon State University and Washington State University. Both games will air on Fox. CW Sports, the sports division of The CW, acquired the rest of the games.[53]
.jpg)