The Big Ten conference agreed to a six-year TV deal that would give Fox Sports half of the available media rights. Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch and Sports Business Daily’s John Ourand mentioned on a podcast (at bottom) that NBC is looking into possibly acquiring the other half of the B1G media package.
Interesting to hear @Ourand_SBJ say on @richarddeitsch's pod that NBC & Turner are kicking the tires on other half of the Big Ten TV pkg
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) May 24, 2016
Re: NBC, they were close to landing Pac-12 rights before ESPN/Fox paired up & were willing to commit $ figure about what Fox/B1G deal is for
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) May 24, 2016
Interestingly, Mike Tirico, who was recently hired by NBC, used to call Big Ten basketball games for ESPN.
There’s also been rumblings that Notre Dame, which has a TV contract with NBC, has its eye on joining the B1G.
Listen to the SI podcast below: