It’s been an annual thing since 2017 that Michigan will play Ohio State on Fox. Fox, along with CBS and NBC, are partners with the Big Ten Conference and get exclusive rights to air Big Ten games. But you may wonder why ‘The Game’ featuring the Wolverines and Buckeyes might not air on either NBC or CBS.
Because it’s an epic fantasy draft of the networks.
Fox analyst Joel Klatt had Fox Sports President of Insights and Analytics Michael Mulvihill on his podcast recently to talk about some of the games that will air on their network.
Mulvihill shared something most people probably don’t know, but the three big networks who have rights to the Big Ten get together and have a fantasy draft as to who gets what games this fall. Fox actually has the first three picks of the draft, meaning Fox chose Michigan vs. Ohio State No. 1 and Texas vs. Michigan No. 2.
“In this year’s draft, we hold the top-three selections in the Big Ten, and we will every year for the next several years,” shared Mulvihill. “That’s a really advantageous position to be in.”
“We don’t really earn our salaries by picking Michigan-Ohio State No. 1. Any college football fan would see that’s the obvious first selection. When you start thinking about these next couple of choices, it gets a little more interesting. We felt this year that Texas-Michigan was probably a top-three game on just its own merits. But there’s also a consideration of what else is available on that date. There are days where you might downgrade the top pick a little bit on a specific date because you feel like the second- and third-best games on that date are pretty good. So, it’s not much of an urgent need to get the best available game on that date. In the case of the Texas-Michigan game on Sept. 7, we really felt like if we didn’t get that game, it was a long way down to the No. 2 and an even further way down to the No. 3.
“We wanted to make sure that we wanted to lock in the top choice on a date where there wasn’t a great depth of quality inventory. So, Michigan-Ohio State’s the No. 1, Texas-Michigan is No. 2, and we had a really fascinating conversation about what to do with the third pick, and you were involved in it.”
He also revealed Fox didn’t make their No. 3 pick but both Ohio State vs. Penn State and Oregon vs. Michigan were both on the table. They traded their third overall pick to another network for additional picks later.
Most of us have been involved in fantasy football, baseball, or basketball drafts in our lifetime. But instead of entering in with a $20, $50, or $100 buy-in — this is roughly a $500-million decision.
