Inside the Big Ten TV Draft with Scott Dochterman

for the four plus four plus two plus two. So right now we're at twelve four four two two one three one three.

at it from this perspective. We've been talking about the TV side of this for generations now, or what feels like generations.

about this and find out what he's learned. Lord knows, on this show, we've been drafted all sorts of weird things for as far back as we can remember, so an actual game draft is definitely of importance. We're going to focus a good chunk most of our questions on that structure, about it and how it came to fruition, all that type of stuff. So we'll get into that

with Scott here momentarily. He also at time of recording, we're recording this on Tuesday afternoon, late morning, he published an article today why does the Big Ten want four automatic college football playoff bids? The league's case has a long history, so we're going to talk about that as well, because of course that's very much in the news now

as well. We've got this public posturing, at least on the SEC side, we have heard a whole lot from the Big Ten as of late, but we're going to get Scott's intel on that front as well, so cover those two things.

of all of this. This is very much an early June show that we're super excited to do. But yeah, I'm gonna need to hear about hand placement from Steve Hutchinson. Right, We're gonna need to do something to balance this out. Go on out to verballers dot.

pleasure to bring on the athletics Scott Doctorman, who has written a couple of fascinating pieces, the first of which is what truly inspired us to bring him on. But then I saw a new piece came out today on Tuesday, June third, as we record this about you know, Jim Delaney's strategy and the thought of big ten pitching auto bids and what that may have meant in previous years for the college football playoff and what it may not

have meant. We had Scott on last year in talking about the I don't know, it's calamity a good word, ty, I think so.

to block. Basically described to him, Look, it's like pushing a car. That's how we attack the defenders. And he learned how to do it and turn him into a Hall of Fame blocker as well as receivers. So Brian is really good in that area. It's a Peter principle. I mean, he's a great offensive line coach. He was a very good tight ends coach. I'm sure Fresno State

will have some great coaches there. Everybody who played under him at that position swears buying Sam Laporta, you know, all of the above, and it's just calling plays and designing plays was probably just not his forte.

within the Big Ten, non conference games. Explain to people what a TV game draft is in twenty twenty five in the Big Ten, all.

over especially the last few years. But over time CBS has moved its SEC on CBS Midday to now the Big Ten, and then NBC has carved out its role as a prime time network for the Big Ten on Saturday nights. So the draft process includes those three entities plus BTN, which has scattered picks later in the draft, and what they do is they agree on a day. This year was April thirtieth, and they're all separate. They're not in one room. Man, I wish they were in one room.

involved in this process. But like Foxes are on Zoom with each other, and then they handle the picks via email. So it just sounds so it's almost like the old signing day send it through the fax machine thing. It's like, we got all this technology and we're doing it through email and that. But they said, look, we used to

do it on a conference call. That got really boring, so we decided let's, uh, let's do it this way, but still slack channels, at least with a Slack channel, you could see so and so is typing, so you're like, okay,

here we go. But how it's kind of set up after that is that the league determines the draft order and they place a number with every pick for every game going all the way to the end, which I think is I want to say, like one hundred and twenty three or something to that effect that were available. They already pull out the Friday night games and those are in a different category, so they've already dispersed them. But then when they go from number one, Fox as

the primary rights holder, has the first three picks. Then it goes and then the next four are NBC CBS, and it depends on the year, Like last year, NBC was five, CBS was four, and NBC made a trade to get up to number three, and so there's trades that are allowed, so it's kind of cool that way. Yeah, And then Fox has eight, and then it goes you know, nine, ten, and then Fox has eleven. So they sit in this

their rooms, their war rooms. CBS was at its in the conference room, NBC was out in Connecticut at its Stanford complex, and then Fox was scattered and then they start selecting So with the first three picks, uh, I believe it was I know Ohio State Michigan was number one, and Ohio State Texas was two, and I believe Ohio State Penn State was three for Fox. They're all winners. Then four this year was NBC took Oregon Penn State, and then CBS was a little more coy with who it picked because it is.

And then there's so much strategy involved that I can get into, but I'll kind of turn it over to

you guys to see what questions you have about.

they feel will do the best there? And also on weeks will they matter against the Big Ten? And say, I mean, the first one was the most obvious one, and that was Texas A and M at Notre Dame because that was a garbage game day for the Big Ten. There was nothing of value. They had two Big Ten games and the only other game that was even Power five matchup was Alabama at Alabama Wisconsin and that was and then that goes to ESPN anyway, so they had their pick of nothing. So they said, this is easy.

We got Marquee matchup, good weekend. We're going to take this and then deprioritize the Big Ten that week. And so they ended up moving like they picked two games for Peacock as opposed to Big NBC, and one of them was Ohio State Ohio at Ohio State. So you get you know, you get you're gonna get ratings no matter what because it's Ohio state. But it's it's Ohio. So the strategy for them is, Okay, which weeks are ratings gold for the Big Ten that we want to prioritize,

which ones are devalued with Notre Dame. So that all of this is strategy that they started looking at back in December. Okay, here's the Big Ten schedule, here's Notre Dame schedule. How does this all fit and kind of make that work? And then which you know, and a couple of times then they can move like a Big Ten game to the midday on NBC and feed into

the Notre Dame game. But they also aren't going to make that the priority, say number two overall, when you can have a really good primetime game and another week or two with Fox. It's a little different because they have baseball commitments. And so that's what kept them from having Friday games in late October last year. I don't know if you recall, they opened the World Series on a Friday night, Yankees Dodgers, and it was in LA.

So it's perfect for them. I mean, they couldn't get gotten better because the USC Rutgers right after that with like a eleven pm easter and time kickoff, which was when you think about it, just how how horrible can you treat one of your teams to make them go all the way across the country and kick off at like eleven o'clock at night. But they did. That didn't happen this year, and two games two weeks were completely wiped out. But in the big picture, they all look

at what other events are going on? How do we structure this around? The SEC is obviously one that they really weigh into, you know, like you know, one weekend that NBC really was focused on was the twenty seventh of September, which was the Oregon Penn State Game. Now it's probably going to go against Alabama Georgia. I know the time hasn't been set, but that's going to be a really you know, crazy competition as to who gets

you know what kind of viewership. But they wanted to build that as a holistically as a big NBC weekend. They have the Ryder Cup and they wanted the Ryder Cup to lead into that, and then on Sunday night they have Dallas screen Bay NFL game, so they figure, wow, we could really make this a big NBC weekend and

build everything around it. So that was part of their strategy, and then the Big Ten stays out of it, but they kind of nudge some things around, and that was one where they thought, you know, this might be a good one for NBC. You know, we're not gonna say Fox, don't take it, but you know it'd be kind of cool if you left it lifted for NBC on this one.

There are some strategies though, for Fox that are complicated because of the noon kickoff window, they can't have West Coast games there, so they're stuck, and they get stuck from time to time. We saw that last year where there was a really bad weekend in early November where maybe the best game or the second best game went to Friday night that they had. I think it was Iowa Ucla, which tells you what kind of weekend it

was when we are all good. CBS had the number one pick and NBC had a Notre Dame game, and there was like two other games on the West coast. Oh, I know it was it was a Penn State. Washington was Penn State wanted that's wide out so badly that they were willing to go to Peacock for it, and at night, which prevented that, CBS had the first pick, and it was Michigan Indiana. And then there was another West Coast game, so they for Big Noon they had

their choice of Rutgers Minnesota or Ohio State Perdue. And they're like, well, we're going to go Ohio State because it's Ohio State. You can play scrimmage there and get better rings than probably the other game. And and then you know, when Ohio State fans got mad, it's like, well, what are you supposed to do here? Right? And so though they're kind of hemmed in on some of this, but but they do have, you know, some strategic ideas. And then CBS is more about kind of looking across

at the SEC. They know they're going to go up against a decent SEC game, but you know they also want to, you know, try to build around whatever they

do on the weekend as well.

little funny moments talking about it. One was like, it's you know, there's no chimes that go no, you know, here's the or anything like that. One of the things that I talked about I didn't quite get in the story that I thought was really interesting. I said, were there ever any moments where you were like, yes, we got this game, or oh man, we just we were waiting on that one.

You know that's going to sell like crazy. But then you start to get into some other weeks where we're looking at it, you know, three and a half four months in advance, and we're going, okay, who's you know what, which games are going to stand out? Well, let's take like October eleventh, for instance, and you've got you know, some really good games Ohio State at Illinois. That could be you could have two teams in the top ten potentially if Illinois, you know, comes to play, or if

Illinois goes back to being Illinois. Before you know, they could be losing to Indiana and a couple other teams and all of a sudden, you're going, yeah, you know, we don't want to draft them in Iowa, Wisconsin. You know, maybe Wisconsin gets off the mat and maybe Iowa was good with Mark Gronowski and all of a sudden that's a hey, you know, it's a camp Randall. Maybe we want this to be primetime or something. And then you're

like a, you know, Michigan USC. You know, is it the Michigan USC we saw last year or is it the Michigan USC from two years ago? Indiana, Oregon? Same thing? You know? Is this? You know, is IU do they go and they beat Illinois and Iowa or are they you know, just kind of fall back to the pack, you know, And that's why you draft the weekends. And what one of the strategies that pretty much all of them have told me is like, it's not so much to be number one, it's to make sure you're not

number three on a bad weekend. Because now all of those games are are legitimate. You know, there's probably four decent games, and then there's a couple others that might fit into that too, like a you know, UCLA, Michigan State. Who knows, you know, maybe Nico is great and Aidan Chiles is great, and that's that fits in there too, but you just don't want to all of a sudden go oh man, we got stuck with a really bad game and kind of like what Fox did.

you might get you know late in the year. You know, there's a couple of games that really, you know, kind of stand out and you're thinking, you know, do we want you know, like after the Ohio State Penn State result, you know what, maybe Ohio State's undefeat and you're like, yeah, I know they're playing Perdue, but that's still Ohio State. Or maybe Penn State pulls the upset and plays Indiana and that's our number one you just you want to

wait until that result takes place. So I did. I did ask specifically though, what were the games that really caused you that ah moment and or the or the anguish? And they were they said, we had them, but I'm not going to tell you which ones they work. So of course that's gamesmanship, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly, Scott. With

respect to the whole Big Noon thing, love it or hate it, Fox has clearly made a brand out of it.

you're really excited about it. Well everything is completely changed. I mean all the windows are open. You know, you've got FCS versus Big ten teams in prime time. But when it comes to Big Noone in particular, Fox is leaned in on it because they felt like, you know, especially four or five years ago, it's like, well, we're gonna have to go against the best SEC game in the midday. They tried that. It didn't really work. Prime

Time is the same type of deal. You you know, you're going to go up against a great game there. But noon people are just finishing up their game day show and it's like, wow, here's a really good game to start your day. And it works. The ratings are

high for it, you know. They One of the things that Mulda Hill told me Mike Mulda Hill from Fox is, look, you could take out the top three team games we picked last year and we still had a higher average big ten numbers than everybody else, and I'm like, okay, you know Ohio State, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan Texas. He removed those three and they still have high numbers, so they're going to lean into it. They do respect though, that some the schools don't like it

or don't like it that often. And that's what we saw with the Texas Ohio State situation that went down that you know, opening weekend, Labor Day weekend. They figured, hey, that even though that Sunday night I think has Miami Notre Dame, they wanted to move that into prime time on a Sunday night, and Ohio State was all for it, you know, special nights, you know, fertile territory. They don't have a game against anybody of value the next week.

Then uh, but Texas, which was contractedly contractually right, said no, we don't want to do that, and so then it got moved back to be to noon. But what they're trying to do is show that they are making efforts to help the schools out and that's that's It's gonna be an ongoing process. And I think what the skit the league did this year a little bit better job was of its kind of week by week is it's

not leaving Ohio State out there hanging. I think there's some other games that they can plug because as I said that, you know, you if you had like one of the week's Iowa Oregon, you couldn't have it at Big Noon, but if now you can because it's in Iowa City. It's just kind of those differences.

with Michigan State. Michigan State played on peacock on a Saturday night at home against Ohio State and then had to turn around that Friday and play Oregon on the road, and so you had a six day window against two of the top you know, two or three teams in the country, and you know, and you have the other factors that they really don't throw in there, like brand new coach and but but to expect the team to go out there and play that type of opponent, you know,

six days apart, was really unfair, they felt, and Michigan State expressed that, and then they look back and said, okay, and then a few of the other things that they're working on as they go as best that they can. Is while Ohio State had its last six games upear on noon, five of which on big noon you know, Wiscon or Michigan State I think had five night games. Iowa had four or five night games and uh, you know, three of which I think in November. So you had

a kind of a skewed view. So they're they're trying to figure out how to you know, slowly, you know, not have so many night games from one team and maybe be able to push Ohio State into the into the primetime a little bit more often. So those were some of the the takeaways that they had from their scheduling, and you know, but there are some things they just can't get away from, which is the travel component. Now that you're on the West coast, it's gonna be difficult.

They've tried to adjust it, and this is the second year of a fourteen week season, and so next year they're gonna have to redo this. But where the West coast teams, they don't play two road games. If they go east, you know, they'll go you know, USC goes to Illinois, then a couple of weeks, then they go home and they either have a buy or they have a home game, you know, something like that, as opposed to, Okay, you're going to Illinois, you fly back and then you're

going to Rutgers or something like that. That's just so, but it's difficult, you know, to do that with this kind of inventory.

her previous lives. It would not be out of the realm of possibilities that next year or at some point in the future, this becomes more of a talking point, more of a production, more of a thing that college football fans can watch and cheer on and you know, set their watch.

to do it? And then afterwards, I know, am I going to try to get intel like it was one of those old fashioned basketball secret scrimmage where you're calling the assistant coaches, so who did what?

mentioning the schedule changes and the feedback that the conference got and the network got. I wonder where this is going with regard to networks and getting games, and like the one of the byproducts of the TV deal is like we're getting CBS games network television games or NBC primetime games that never would have existed because it was a three and six team against a four and five team and it would have been relegated to the Big

ten network. But these are the slots that you know, NBC and CBS have, Like are they a little bit upset about putting an uninspiring matchup on prime time airwaves? Like is there any sort of buyer's remorse about either NBC and CBS and their place in the Big ten TV deal or are they just thrilled to have live football because it'll do enough of a rating that even though on the face having you know, two non Bowl teams play again on primetime network TV seems weird, but you know, is it still a win.

have eighteen teams, it kind of gets spread out. And I think last year was somewhat unique in that that Michigan was really slow out of the gate and I lost a couple of games early, USC never really got off the mat, and we didn't know how good Indiana and Illinois were until the season was really progressing. So now kind of going into this season, we think Illinois could be a top fifteen team. It should be a top fifteen team anyway, coming out of the and then

maybe maybe they're gonna be good Indiana. Can they do it? Repeat it, and I will finally put together an offense. And then you got your your blue bloods and teams like Oregon that you feel like they could be something, you know, special again. So they do have better inventory. But what I could say about out the non conference schedule is that absolutely has to change or they have to change the schedule to accommodate the networks, because they did have to provide an exemption to Fox in week

two because there was nothing there at all. All there all the Big Tens road games were all the Big Ten's major games were on the road, and so they only had what two games that they controlled pitting Power conference teams that that Saturday. One was Boston College at Michigan State, which is a nice game. Maybe one team goes to a bowlgang, Yeah, but that that goes to NBC, so that kind of vaults the top. And then the other one is Oklahoma State at Oregon, which when it

was made looked like a great game. Oklahoma State obviously went to nine and the Big Twelve last year, so that changes things. But there was nothing left for Fox. You know, they were strongly considering opening up with well, at least because Ohio State's playing Grambling, you can't really go there, you know. And then Michigan's at Oklahoma, so then you're going, well, Penn State's at home, they're playing

but they're playing FIU. What are we doing here? So they got an exemption because they decided, you know, they still have a Big twelve contract, and Iowa plays Iowa State, and that's to day the kirk Farans can pass Woody Hayes as the winning his coach in Big Ten history. It's too you know, it's a Big ten team at a Big twelve team, a rivalry game. It's you know,

they can do big noon kickoff. So instead of playing it at like four, which is what the plan was, they said, we just moved this into our noon time slot. And then they ended up saying okay and did that. But but in the future, the Big Ten is going to have to start going to these teams and because what's funny to me is that thirteen out of the eighteen actually played ten Power five opponents, you know, so they've actually got decent non conference schedules for that part.

But they've got to do something about the scheduling itself. They can't just have these free weekends when you have three linear partners. It's one thing if you're the SEC and you can put it on ESPN two when you're playing Memphis and Oldness or something like that, but you know you can't put NBC, you know, acron A Nebraska. You know, it's just is this not going to work?

Clydesdale teams. Is it apparent that any of these networks are sort of buying low or think bigger things about a specific team, like a CBS like very bullish on Nebraska, or is Fox like it was there any sort of apparent like, hey, this team might not be super attractive right now, but we think they could have a special season and we might be getting a big value play by circling our wagons around this team.

as it always is. Michigan, your two name programs winner is going to get a bump, They're going to be ranked, They're probably you know, and I think both teams could could be ranked even if Michigan loses at Oklahoma. And so I think that's where they really kind of drew the line because there's also some pretty good games too that are available. CBS also took as part of its Pack two coverage Washington and Washington State, so it leads

into the Apple Cup. But then under Big ten control, you've got Illinois and Indiana, which I think is going to be a fantastic game, and Oregon at Oregon State. I mean, it may not be very good, but it's still a rivalry game the Civil War. And Michigan State at USC. I think that's also intriguing to me. So, but by announcing those two that game early, I think

it really signifies that they are there. They're all in on the winner going forward, and they play it all the way out where they picked Nebraska Iowa on Black

Friday as well.

have to try and factor in as well. Were there different approaches to preparation to putting together those big boards? What did it look like from that standpoint?

you know, intimately evolved. And they go through war games starting in December when the Big ten announced, it's great, it's it's it's pretty cool that they, like NBC told me, look, we split our teams up, and then we had other people with those teams, and it's like, you go in this room today, your Fox. You go in this room today, you're CBS, and we're going to be NBC, and we're going to try to figure out what their ideas and

their strategies are. And then you look around, Okay, well they've got the World Series this week, so they're not gonna think about you know something here, you know, or well they've you know, they've got Notre Dame at night, so we're going to focus on a really big game earlier in the day. So they're trying to kind of figure all that out, and then they go through multiple

mock drafts. They said that almost weekly, and then it comes down to almost daily as they get closer, because they just want to figure out how it plays out, so ultimately they don't get surprised. That's what they really want. And and but so it's really sounds like that, you know, Moli Hill's like, I don't. I've never been in an inside an NFL war room, but it kind of feels like it, you know, because they because they just play this scenario out so much and then they get their

their selections and it's it's kind of funny. I mean, it's kind of like with the NFL draft when you play a mock draft and you're like, you know, that's not that hard. You know, we can just pick this

thing here. But when you're talking about the difference between you know, looking at the tangible numbers not just wins and losses and how good this team is, but also TV numbers, and then the thing that they all kind of express that's been the most challenging for them is now with the portal that they're trying to follow the moves and who's adding, who's going where? You know, what

does this team look like? Is if you're talking about ten years ago and Ohio State lost all of its players fifteen to the NFL and draft picks and everything else. You might say, yeah, they're due for a down year. Now they reloaded. You know, they've already got a lot

of talent, but you know they reloaded. Can you know, and they're looking at each and every team like, wow, can Mark Ronowski really take this team from you know, offensively being challenged in Iowa City to maybe, you know, hey, they're playing Oregon, they're playing Indiana, they're playing Penn State all at home. Maybe that's something we want to eye on. Is this something we think can happen? You know? And

then they're reading everybody's you know, reporting and whatever. So they're analyzing this so deeply that you know that actually kind of came off as a surprise, you know, because you'd think that they cared and they it have mattered, but man, they really they go all in on this.

an executive leaving Disney for YouTube TV. And then there's like you know, proprietary, non disclosure, non compete types of things going on, like have there ever been Maybe you don't know the answer to this question, That's fine. This is just me asking like poaching potential of like Fox trying to take an NBC person or vice versa, because all of a sudden, now you don't need a scout

team running, you know, backup quarterback as Cordell Stewart. You actually have somebody who understands the Fox mindset or the NBC mindset. Has has that been a part of this at all? Behind the scenes, There haven't been any moves.

they don't quite rehash the draft necessarily. Maybe they will pick or two here and there.

You know, you're not even having your big ten game in prime time or you're going to move it to Peacock or something like that that you know, they're opportunities for it for sure, and I hope I find out about them it's really did happen, And oh man, I can't wait.

question is about the story you wrote today, which I you know, it definitely ties into everything we've spoken about before.

But you mentioned Jim Delaney's stance as it relates to scheduling, as it relates to positioning team to look good in the eyes of the College Football Playoff Committee Selection committee, and the reported Tony Petiti pitch for four auto bids for the Big Ten as opposed to the five plus eleven model, which I think has sort of come out after those four plus four plus two plus two plus.

I can't do all the math and I head this quickly on the fly, but getting to sixteen teams and that it may the autobid element may have cost the Big Ten, which is also something that the SEC has talked about. And you know we have Greg Sanke going up on his pulpit talking about, you know, the analytics favor the SEC's road more so than anybody else is

via strength of schedule. Where is the Big Ten today in terms of its preferences, how it is approaching its strategy for pitching, you know, the future of the College Football Playoff? Where does that stand and where do you expect them to land? The Big Ten in terms of preferences?

the SEC in the Big Ten. A couple of months ago, I was in New Orleans when they had their Divide the World sum at Part two and it was like they were, you know, they're in lockstep in a lot of areas. And now it just seems like the SEC is kind of back to this being, you know, having its swagger out there and this is why we think it should be, and the Big Ten is kind of taking a step back from the forefront and kind of

you know, seated that ground. And then you have the ACC and Big Twelve saying well, yeah, it should be five plus two, you know eleven, that's that's the fairest

way to do it. Well, you know, I would say that the Big Ten had the reason why it's not wholeheardly embracing this and actually I put the numbers between what it would be if but the current constitution, because it's kind of hard to go back and forth, but the current team constitution over the last four years one versus the other, and the really the the strategy is that they have a lot of PTSD from what happened ten years ago and this was and they would have

First of all, they would have gotten more teams in at five plus eleven. Then they would have at the guarantees that they're asking for. But the other part is in twenty fifteen, Jim Delaney decided, since we're in a playoff era, we're going to position our teams the best possible way to be competitive to not only make the playoff, but also make New Year six Bulls, which were a little bit more important than they are today, I mean from that perspective. And so he unveiled this what he

called nineteen ten. You know, a numerical acronym. You know that they're playing one championship game, nine Big ten games because they were at eight one intersectional opponent or which would be just a non power conference team, and then

no FCS opponents. He figured that would provide them with the strength of schedule to put them in the In the conversation every year for not only the playoff, but then also for major bowl games, and a couple of years in it got proven that that just didn't matter. And one of it was when Ohio State twice got left out as champions, and what they were looking at wasn't so much. You know, Ohio State lost one game in the Big Ten each of that seventeen and eighteen years.

One was at Iowa, one was at Purdue. Both were blowouts, both were surprising. But they're also looking at it. Look, if we were at eight games and we're divisions, maybe we're not even playing that game. Maybe they're playing Grambling or they're playing Morgan State, or they're playing you know, Mercer or whatever, and so that game wouldn't have happened, and we would have been better off not playing nine

as opposed to playing nine. And whereas other leagues, meaning the SEC primarily but also the ACC, you're not having that opportunity where half your team's loose. And also in the month of November, there are those non conference games against a group of five teams or FCS opponents where when you're in the middle of the season, sometimes you just you run out of gas. You're on the road, at a conference team and you get a hit with a buzzsaw, and so they were really frustrated through that.

And then the one that really sent them over the top was in twenty eighteen, and this is about a bowl game. Nevertheless, Penn State get ranked twelfth. Florida was tenth l she was eleventh LS. She was way out. It was fine. Florida had two FCS opponents. They played a three and nine Georgia or three and nine Colorado State and then Florida State, which had a blow of five hundred record and it really did not have a

very good schedule, but it did beat LSU. And whereas Penn State played pitt which was a Coastal Division champion, played at eleven and two Appalachian Stage, played some really good top five competition, and yet it was still ranked behind Florida. So Delaney's like, well, what do we do now, you know, how do we get this? Now? Is it all eye test? If it is all eye tests, then these are really uneven, you know. And now he's of course,

you know, two commissioners removed from the Big ten. But now they look at it as we don't want to get into a situation where our nine league. Our nine game league schedule is a detriment when you're comparing to an eight league schedule. So that's why we want guarantees. We're different, we're built differently. We want it. We have nine games, they have eight. We feel like we're going to be competitive, and the numbers show that they have

still gotten the same or similar numbers. In fact, they we've had fewer numbers in the in the auto bid era than they would have if it was just five plus twelve. But we feel like this is a better way for us to guarantee it. Now, if the SEC goes, okay, we're going to go to nine games and then I could then the big ten will probably come down, you know, whether it's five plus eleven or there's a little bit different guarantees set up, they would come down from that.

But if the SEC doesn't go to nine games, and then it won't budge on on the guarantees.

Everybody read. Everybody follows Scott at the athletic. He's writing terrific stuff about national college football, Big ten football, you name it, and I just I can't wait to see where the draft goes next season. Part of me hopes it's an entertainment spectacle with Fox bringing like the guy who does the voice of Homer Simpson to announce their picks in the way that like the NBA lottery bring like good luck charms, and part of me is horrified

by this whole ordeal. So Scott, thank you very much for your time, and everybody check them out.

is interesting to me. You know, you mentioned the fantasy draft of it all, and it is what I was also picking up vibe wise, was are you a Sidoku guy?

American Way or whatever exists anymore. But there was something the mechanics and strategy of like Okay, a three can't be here or here, but a three can go in this square, a seven can't go here, Like the piecing of that kind of strategic puzzle of like, well, we can't air because we got the World Series, We've got the Ryder Cup, we've got the whatever event, We've got this game already circled here, so we can't do this team here, or we can't air this then like there

is that like moving around the nines and eights and three in twos, and you know, right like there was that strategy element is what I was picking up from him as well. So it's it's all fascinating the way, and you know, the people involved would obviously say something like it's not as interesting as you think.

starts there. The season kind of starts there. All too often when a game is played, on what network it's played, who is calling the game, All of these things factor into the fan experience.

I know they have G five conferences on CBS Sports Network and other CBS games as well on main CBS, but in terms of the major conference presence, it's Big Ten, and obviously Fox has Big Twelve, but it's bread is buttered by the Big Ten, and their investment is by far the largest into the Big Ten than any other conference. They're all kind of pulling in the same direction, right. A healthy robust ratings monster Big ten is good for everybody in these meetings, so it's not like they're really

sworn enemies. Whereas when this draft was happening, when ESPN was a Big Ten partner, and ESPN has had its toes in the Big Ten, in the Pac ten to twelve, well in the ACC and the Big twelve, right, that's when I think it might have even been more cutthroats that I think battle lines were more obvious when there was the ESPN ABC element to this all, whereas like CBS just like had its big SEC game right, there were rules involved with who they could pick and not pick.

You know, a team couldn't be in that spot more than a certain number of times, the three thirty spot, but like they were sort of set there. NBC had their notre ed aim and Fox and ESPN were the ones sort of playing was risk. That's the global battle for domination. I would imagine it was maybe more cutthroat than in the draft, and now it's just more of a shadow battle. I'm serious.

gotten until December the first to figure it out. It's not the last we've heard of it, but clearly the Big ten and SEC are going to be kicking up some dust on this front throughout the summer and as we get deeper into the year. So we'll cover that as best we can here on the show. Again, if you made it this far, hit follow, hit subscribe, if nothing more, we do appreciate your support. It helps us immensely.

Dan all right, we've got more episodes to record today actually, as we kind of plan for the weeks that are ahead, so we'll get to doing that. We would encourage you again reach out on social media or via email soliverbal at gmail dot com if you have anything further to say or add or any thoughts to get off your chest.

We've been getting a lot of them, a lot of them over the last couple weeks here, people talking about the playoff format, talking about some of the previews that we've done, their expectations for teams, and the likes.