..confirmed by the network at their upfronts Monday, with quite a bit of promotion from Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh and Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer (who appeared on a video call there for some reason) as well...
Other notable games there include Penn State-Ohio State, Notre Dame-Michigan State, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, and Texas-USC. But it’s the Ohio State – Michigan one that really matters. That game last year (with the Buckeyes ranked second and the Wolverines ranked third) drew a 10.4 overnight rating on ABC, the best of the college football season, the best noon kickoff rating on record, and the second-best regular-season CFB number in any slot ever for ABC (behind, shockingly, another Michigan – Ohio State game in 2006)...
Having that game switch networks is a big deal, and that’s why Fox outbid ESPN for the Tier 1 rights ($240 million annually versus $190 million). Both networks will show the same amount of games each year (25 football and 50 basketball), but Fox gets the first pick every year (ESPN gets second, Fox gets third and so on), so they can take Ohio State – Michigan in perpetuity for the life of the contract (presuming they’d want to, but it seems unlikely anything else will come close in terms of ratings). The Tier 1 rights aren’t just about Ohio State – Michigan, of course; they also include the Big Ten championship game and a few other notable things. But grabbing this matchup is a huge part of why Fox was willing to pay more for what’s mostly the same number of games...
So, they got Meyer to promote Fox too, just maybe in not as an over-the-top way. And it’s interesting that Harbaugh would go all-in for Fox, which he doesn’t work for (and only some of Michigan’s games will be shown there; plenty may wind up on ESPN or ABC too). But hey, Fox went all in for him with the Harbus, long before they even won the Tier 1 Big Ten rights. Perhaps turnabout is fair play.
http://awfulannouncing.com/fox/ohio-state-michigan-officially-fox-coaches-promoting-network.html
Other notable games there include Penn State-Ohio State, Notre Dame-Michigan State, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, and Texas-USC. But it’s the Ohio State – Michigan one that really matters. That game last year (with the Buckeyes ranked second and the Wolverines ranked third) drew a 10.4 overnight rating on ABC, the best of the college football season, the best noon kickoff rating on record, and the second-best regular-season CFB number in any slot ever for ABC (behind, shockingly, another Michigan – Ohio State game in 2006)...
Having that game switch networks is a big deal, and that’s why Fox outbid ESPN for the Tier 1 rights ($240 million annually versus $190 million). Both networks will show the same amount of games each year (25 football and 50 basketball), but Fox gets the first pick every year (ESPN gets second, Fox gets third and so on), so they can take Ohio State – Michigan in perpetuity for the life of the contract (presuming they’d want to, but it seems unlikely anything else will come close in terms of ratings). The Tier 1 rights aren’t just about Ohio State – Michigan, of course; they also include the Big Ten championship game and a few other notable things. But grabbing this matchup is a huge part of why Fox was willing to pay more for what’s mostly the same number of games...
So, they got Meyer to promote Fox too, just maybe in not as an over-the-top way. And it’s interesting that Harbaugh would go all-in for Fox, which he doesn’t work for (and only some of Michigan’s games will be shown there; plenty may wind up on ESPN or ABC too). But hey, Fox went all in for him with the Harbus, long before they even won the Tier 1 Big Ten rights. Perhaps turnabout is fair play.
http://awfulannouncing.com/fox/ohio-state-michigan-officially-fox-coaches-promoting-network.html
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