There was no made-for-television moment last spring as the Big Ten’s television draft unfolded. With a flurry of emails between CBS, NBC and Fox executives — plus a few follow-up phone calls to the conference to ensure contractual agreements were being met — each network consulted with its big board and planned how to best position its broadcast packages with its picks.
A network television draft for college football is every bit as sterile as it sounds.
“It’s just emails flying back and forth,” said Kerry Kenny, chief operating officer for the Big Ten Conference. “We benefit from all these partners working to make the Big Ten the best it can be, but at the end of the day, they’re all competitors. What’s good for Fox, what’s good for NBC, what’s good for CBS isn’t always good for the other network partners in that moment.”
The Big Ten is in the midst of a seven-year media rights agreement with Fox, CBS and NBC which began in July 2023. Penn State’s place in this agreement has been an interesting one in that so much of what fans have been accustomed to — like start times known for the White Out months in advance and the hope of playing Ohio State or Michigan in prime time for that White Out game — all look different now. Trying to protect Penn State’s annual White Out game and place it in a prime-time slot is harder than ever before.
This year, Penn State’s 16th full-stadium White Out will be played Saturday at 8 p.m. against Washington. The game comes on the heels of an emotional letdown after Penn State’s loss to No. 2 Ohio State. It feels strange that the annual spectacle with an envious atmosphere is being held this late in the season. It’s also odd that it won’t be found on traditional TV and instead will be streamed on Peacock.
How Penn State ended up here is the byproduct of trying to ensure the game is held at night like Penn State fans desired and athletic director Pat Kraft lobbied for, while making sure the network partners get what they desire. No, Penn State wasn’t necessarily relegated to Peacock but instead was slotted into a window that met the night game request.
When the television partners met in the spring to draft who picks which games first, second and third this week, Penn State had already made it clear that it hoped to have a White Out game in prime time.
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Thanks to an 18-team conference that spans three time zones and has more network partners than previous media rights agreements, fans must continue adapting. Only once before, in 2015, has the White Out been held in November. The 8 p.m. start time wasn’t announced until last Saturday.
Even the raucous, White Out environment that’s become the calling card for the Penn State fan base, a bucket-list item for sports fans and a made-for-TV spectacle, will be a little harder for fans to find Saturday with Peacock being a subscription-based streaming service. It’s the second time Penn State football has appeared on the platform, joining last year’s game against Delaware.
Still, in some ways, it might feel like a relegation, which comes just one week after State College was the epicenter of the sport, hosting ESPN’s “College GameDay” and Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff.” But, part of the reason why the game ended up on Peacock is thanks to NBC’s long-standing relationship with Notre Dame. Part of that deal allows up to two games per year to be played in prime time on NBC. Florida State-Notre Dame was designated for the NBC prime-time slot well in advance of the Big Ten’s draft, Kenny said. However, NBC’s slot wasn’t the only option. Had Penn State beat Ohio State last week, this weekend’s game could’ve been at 3:30 p.m. on CBS or in prime time on Fox.
“We always knew that with NBC’s first selection that week, November 9, the Big Ten selection, whether it was the number one pick that week, the number two pick, or the number three pick among the three broadcast partners that was going to always end up on Peacock,” Kenny said.
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Another new twist this season is that the White Out will also be available in 23 different IMAX theaters, primarily catering to audiences in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Washington — inconveniently, the closest IMAX to Happy Valley is more than 90 minutes away in York, Pa. Still, it’ll be the first college football game presented live in select IMAX theaters, perhaps shedding light on what this next frontier of out-of-venue sports viewing could look like.
NBC tried a similar approach with the Olympic opening ceremonies this year in IMAX and also found success showing the 2024 NBA Finals in non-mainland China and the League of Legends championship in China and Korea. Depending on each theater’s food and beverage offerings this weekend, fans could drink beer, order dinner and experience the game in a different way — all without having to navigate Beaver Stadium postgame traffic.
“It’s the whole communal experience first of all and then we’ve specifically designed each of our theaters for the most immersive experience possible both from a visual and an audio standpoint,” said Mark Welton, global president of IMAX Theatres. “It really feels like you’re at the game. The crowd, the noise. … People are up cheering. It’s like kind of being in the stadium.”
Admittedly, the timing of the White Out, it being on Peacock and the possibility of watching it in IMAX all feels a little odd because Penn State’s biggest home game of the season — and one of the most important in Beaver Stadium history — was played last week at noon as part of Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff.” For all the fan criticism of a noon kick — and there was plenty — the Big Noon exposure machine did its job. Penn State-Ohio State drew 9.94 million viewers, an uptick from the 7.3 million viewers who typically watch when the game has aired in prime time.
Last 25 Years of Ohio State-Penn State Games:
FOX Big Noon Games – 9.4 million viewers
All Other OSU-PSU Games – 7.3 million
Look forward to running it back next year. https://t.co/TvxPAMl84S
— Michael Mulvihill (@mulvihill79) November 6, 2024
Fans will still show up in droves Saturday for the White Out, but this season Penn State has rolled out so many variations of a White Out theme — a “White Out energy” game against Illinois, a helmet stripe game, and a stripe out — that the lead up to Saturday feels different. Even head coach James Franklin, who usually wears white to his Monday media session the week of the White Out, didn’t do so this week. The whole tenor of the week coming off a loss to Ohio State doesn’t have the usual hype that comes in the lead-up to the annual stadium spectacle.
Part of the challenge moving forward will be how willing the Big Ten is to help Penn State with the White Out while recognizing that the TV partners hold the cards.
Kraft connected with the Big Ten last spring around draft time to state his case about what the White Out means to Penn State fans, the sport and the local community. It’s often used as a marquee recruiting weekend for other Penn State sports beyond football. Fans prefer the game to be held at night so the visual spectacle of 100,000-plus fans wearing white shirts and shaking white pompoms pops against the night sky. Hotels are booked months in advance.
Penn State knew Fox was making the Ohio State game Big Noon. It also knew the September home game against Illinois for homecoming would be at night. It could’ve either doubled up on homecoming and the White Out or done a noon White Out for Ohio State. Instead, it opted for Washington knowing that the start time would at the earliest be at 3:30 p.m. Penn State wanted time to make fans aware of the game theme — which it did in July — and wanted ample time to put all the usual marketing efforts behind it.
“Washington was unique because it’s a time of year where after daylight savings where a 3:30 game it gets dark pretty quick,” Kenny said. “We looked at that date and commissioner (Tony) Petitti and I spoke extensively with Pat about that.”
It’s never too early to peek ahead to Penn State’s 2025 home slate which includes games in Beaver Stadium against Oregon and Nebraska, among others. While a prime-time White Out against Oregon would seem like a shoo-in a few TV contracts ago, that’s far from a given now.
“We’re committed to making sure that this continues to find a way even in this new changing environment of college football that the White Out is a tradition that has some legs to survive and really thrive in the future,” Kenny said.
(Photo: Dan Rainville / USA Today)
