Fox College Football

Fox College Football
Also known as College Football on Fox
CFB on Fox
Fox CFB
BCS on Fox (2007–10)
Genre College football game telecasts
Presented by Gus Johnson
Tim Brando
Joe Davis
Craig Bolerjack
Ryan Nece
Joey Harrington
Charles Davis
Joel Klatt
Petros Papadakis
Eric Crouch
Darius Walker
(see section)
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 15
Production
Camera setup Multi-camera
Running time 210 minutes or until game ends
Production company(s) Fox Sports
Distributor 20th Television
Release
Original network Fox (1999–present)
Fox Sports Networks (1999–present)
Fox College Sports (2006–present)
Fox Sports 1 (2013–present)
Fox Sports 2 (2013–present)
FX (2011–2012)
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
(downconverted to letterboxed 4:3 on SDTV feed since 2009),
720p (HDTV)
Original release January 1, 1999 (1999-01-01) – present
Chronology
Related shows SEC on CBS
External links
Website

Fox College Football (or Fox CFB for short) is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I FBS college football games produced by Fox Sports, and broadcast primarily by Fox, FS1, and FS2.

Among the Power Five conferences, Fox primarily airs coverage of the Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, and Pac-12, and holds rights to the Big Ten and Pac-12 football championship games (the latter alternating yearly with ESPN). Secondary coverage is also broadcast by the regional Fox Sports Networks and Fox College Sports channels. In addition to regular season games, Fox also holds rights to the Foster Farms Bowl and Holiday Bowl, and formerly broadcast the Bowl Championship Series and Cotton Bowl Classic.

Coverage history

Cotton Bowl Classic

The Fox network acquired its first college football telecast in 1998, when it obtained the broadcast rights to the annual Cotton Bowl Classic held each January on (eventually, the day after) New Year's Day; the first game to be shown on the network as part of the deal was held on January 1, 1999. Fox renewed its contract to carry the game in 2010, in a four-year agreement that ran through the 2013 NCAA college football season. Fox lost the rights to the Cotton Bowl to ESPN for the 2015 edition, as the cable network holds the television contract to all six bowl games that encompass the College Football Playoff system under a twelve-year deal worth over $7.3 billion. The Cotton Bowl was the only game among the six that was not already broadcast by ESPN.[1][2]

Bowl Championship Series

From the 2006 through the 2009 seasons, Fox held the broadcast rights to most of the games comprising the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) – including the Sugar Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl and the Orange Bowl, as well as the BCS Championship Game. Fox paid close to $20 million per game for the rights to televise the BCS games.[3] The network's contract with the BCS excluded any event in the series that was held at the Rose Bowl stadium, such as the Rose Bowl Game and the 2010 BCS National Championship Game, as ABC already had a separate arrangement with the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association to serve as the broadcaster for the games.

ESPN, which is majority owned by ABC's corporate parent The Walt Disney Company and serves as the producer for all of ABC's sports coverage, would displace Fox outright as the broadcaster of the BCS beginning in the 2010-11 season. This left the Fox network with only the Cotton Bowl Classic as the sole college football game, to which it held the television rights until the 2013-14 season.

Expansion of regular season coverage

Beginning with the 2011 season, sister cable channel FX began airing a "game of the week" on Saturdays featuring matchups from three of the major collegiate football conferences: the Pac-12, the Big 12 and Conference USA.[4] The Fox network also obtained the rights to air the Big Ten Conference's new championship game beginning that season and running through 2016, as part of Fox Sports' involvement with the Big Ten Network.[5] Additionally, Fox broadcast the inaugural Pac-12 Football Championship Game – future editions of the game would alternate between ESPN and Fox.[6]

Beginning with the 2012 season, Fox added regular season games on Saturdays to its lineup; it broadcast eight afternoon games and twelve nighttime games throughout the season, with the latter telecasts airing as part of a new strategy by the network to carry more sports programming on Saturday nights during prime time. FS1 replaced FX's coverage upon its launch in August 2013, though some overflow coverage has aired on FX occasionally when warranted; since 2017, overflow coverage is carried on Fox Business Network, which usually carries paid programming on Saturday afternoons of little consequence to pre-emption.[7]

Fox's coverage of the 2015 season opened with a game on FS1 featuring the Michigan Wolverines at the Utah Utes. As the first game featuring new head coach Jim Harbaugh, the season premiere was promoted with a touring "HarBus"—decorated with a sweater and khakis in imitation of Harbaugh's on-field wardrobe—travelling to Salt Lake City for the game., accompanied by a group of "HarBros" dressed like Harbaugh. The tour concluded at Salt Lake City's Grand America Hotel for game day, although the bus itself was barred from entering the University of Utah's campus.[8][9]

On July 12, 2016, the San Francisco 49ers announced that it had taken over the Foster Farms Bowl, and had reached a four-year deal to move the game to Fox and Fox Deportes beginning in 2016.[10] It was also reported by Sports Business Journal that Fox was pursuing a share of the Big Ten's primary football rights.[11] Fox Sports began carrying select college football games in virtual reality for the 2016 season.[12][13] The following year, FS1 also acquired rights to the Holiday Bowl, ending a long-standing relationship with the game and ESPN.[14]

Big Ten deal

On July 24, 2017, the Big Ten Conference announced that Fox and ESPN had acquired rights to its games under a six-year deal beginning in the 2017 season. The contract also includes an extension of Fox's contract to operate Big Ten Network through 2032.[15] This includes the Michigan/Ohio State game yearly, which had been a fixture of ABC's college football schedule for over a half-decade; the game remained slotted at noon on the last day of the Big Ten's regular season.[16] As a result, Fox now airs a tripleheader on most weeks of the season.

Fox promoted its addition of Big Ten football with promotional campaigns focusing on each team; a Children of the Corn-themed commercial focusing on the Nebraska Cornhuskers attracted controversy due to its thematic, prompting the university to request that it be pulled.[17]

Nielsen ratings

Regular season

  • 2013 Texas Tech - Oklahoma (Fox): 2.4
  • 2013 Texas - Baylor (Fox): 2.3
  • 2013 Oklahoma - Baylor (FS1): 1.3
  • 2014 Michigan State - Oregon (Fox): 3.5
  • 2014 Baylor - Oklahoma (FS1): 1.3
  • 2015 Notre Dame - Stanford (Fox): 4.3
  • 2015 Baylor - Oklahoma State (Fox): 2.6
  • 2015 Michigan - Utah (FS1): 1.7
  • 2016 Ohio State - Oklahoma (Fox): 3.4
  • 2016 Oklahoma - Oklahoma State (Fox): 3.1
  • 2016 USC - Washington (Fox): 2.5
  • 2016 Texas - Oklahoma (FS1): 1.7
  • 2017 Ohio State - Michigan (Fox): 6.1
  • 2017 Michigan - Wisconsin (Fox): 3.3
  • 2017 Texas - USC (Fox): 2.9
  • 2017 Michigan State - Ohio State (Fox): 2.4
  • 2017 Oklahoma - Oklahoma State (FS1): 1.4
  • 2017 Ohio State - Nebraska (FS1): 1.3
  • 2017 Maryland - Texas (FS1): 1.2

Conference championships

Bowls

Cotton Bowl Classic
Orange Bowl
Sugar Bowl
Fiesta Bowl
BCS National Championship Game

See also

References

  1. ↑ "ESPN to televise college football playoff in 12-year deal". ESPN. April 24, 2013. Retrieved April 26, 2013.
  2. ↑ John Ourand and Michael Smith (November 9, 2012). "ESPN homes in on 12-year BCS package". Sports Business Daily. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
  3. ↑ Steven Zeitchik (December 28, 2007). "Fox faces BCS contract challenges". The Hollywood Reporter.
  4. ↑ Jon Lafayette (March 27, 2011). "FX Tackles College Football". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Fox To Air New Big Ten Football Championship Game - Broadcaster Secures Rights To Conference's Title Tilt From 2011-16". Multichannel News. November 17, 2010.
  6. ↑ "ESPN, Fox Tie Up Pac-12 Rights For $3 Billion: Reports". Multichannel News. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  7. ↑ Clapp, Matt (23 September 2017). "Fox Business Network is the new home of Big Ten football". Awful Announcing. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
  8. ↑ "Say what? It's a bus wearing Harbaugh's khakis". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  9. ↑ "Utah football: Utes ask 'HarBus' to stay off U. campus". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  10. ↑ "San Francisco 49ers Assume Management of Foster Farms Bowl at Levi's® Stadium". 49ers.com. Forty Niners Football Company LLC. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  11. ↑ "ESPN, Fox to reportedly pay Big Ten $2.64B: What's Rutgers' take?". NJ.com. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  12. ↑ Rœttgers, Janko (September 13, 2016). "Fox Sports Streams College Football Match in Virtual Reality". Variety. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  13. ↑ "Fox Sports streaming Red River Rivalry live in virtual reality". SI.com. Sports Illustrated. October 7, 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  14. ↑ "Holiday Bowl moving from ESPN to FS1". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  15. ↑ "Big Ten formally announces six-year media rights deal with ESPN, FOX and CBS". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-07-31.
  16. ↑ Landis, Bill (15 May 2017). "Ohio State vs. Michigan football rivalry to be televised on FOX during 2017 season". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  17. ↑ "Fox Sports Pulled 'Children of the Corn' Themed College Football Ad at Request of University of Nebraska". AgencySpy. Retrieved 2017-10-04.
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