Countdown to Kickoff 2015 #6: College Football TV Deals

The goal of this list is to provide a starting guide for where you might find your favorite team playing.  TV rights are all controlled by the conference of the home team.

ESPN refers to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3 (online only), ESPNEWS, and ABC (if another network does not have regular broadcast channel rights).

Fox refers to Fox, Fox Sports 1 and 2, Fox Sports Net, and any other channel that might carry a Fox produced game.

There are three tiers of TV rights in college sports.  Here's a rough guideline of those tiers, as pulled from a 2012 Forbes article.

First-tier:  Rights holder has first choice, usually for broadcast television.
Second-tier:  Rights holder has second choice, usually for cable.
Third-tier:  Everything else, largely determined by the conference.

In this article, we're just looking at football rights.

ACC
Primary:  ESPN
Sub-licenses:  ACC Network (syndicated on local channels) and RSN (produced by Fox and usually found on regional sports channels on cable)

The ACC does not have a dedicated cable channel at this time.

SEC
Over the air primary:  CBS (first choice for 3:30 games, occasional primetime games)
Cable primary:  ESPN

The SEC Network is a dedicated cable channel co-owned by ESPN.  SEC home games cannot air on ABC.

The championship game is on CBS.

Big Ten
Primary:  Fox and ESPN

The Big Ten Network (BTN) is a dedicated cable channel co-owned by Fox.  The Big Ten has a stipulation in the contracts that basically says that all games have to be national.  That is why many 3:30 games are shown in a reverse mirror on ABC and ESPN or ESPN2.

The championship game is on Fox.

Pac-12
Primary:  Fox and ESPN
Each primary company gets 22 games a year, which allows the Pac-12 to maintain enough of their own library for the Pac-12 Network (the only conference network completely owned by the conference).

The championship game alternates between Fox (even years) and ESPN (odd years), always on a Friday night.

Big 12
Primary:  ESPN and Fox

ESPN gets 19 games, and Fox gets the rest.  Although, each school can maintain control of one of those games.  So, that's how the Longhorn Network can get a football game.

In all honestly, the Big 12 does have the best explanation of television rights out of any of the conferences.

Notre Dame
All home games are on NBC.