The Big Ten has an NFL-style TV contract with NFL-lite paychecks. Awesome, right? Not quite. The league is not getting NFL-style ratings, and it's a huge problem for the conference.
That's the root of why the College Football Playoff is all but guaranteed to move to 24 starting next season, but manufacturing stakes around No. 25 Wisconsin at unranked Iowa (airing this Saturday in Fox's prized Big Noon window) won't solve the problem on its own.
And so now we get to Phase 2.
Ohio State AD Ross Bjork broke the news Thursday on Ryan Day's weekly radio spot in Columbus that the Big Ten is looking to implement an NFL-style scheduling model, starting with the 2028 season.
“What they did is they looked at historical records over the course of everyone's football life. So Indiana was not what Indiana is today when they set the model. Same thing with UCLA, right? And so what we're talking about in the Big Ten now is, starting probably in 2028, is can we have a different scheduling model that's based on current year standings?” Bjork said, via Eleven Warriors. “So next year's schedule, we would not know who we're playing (until after this season), other than protecting the rivalry games – obviously we have the biggest one (Ohio State vs. Michigan). Other than that, the rest of the schedule could be based on how did the teams finish in the previous year. That's how the NFL does it.”
The B1G has currently set all opponents and locations through the '28 season -- make your plans now, Illinois visits Rutgers in 2028 -- but the 2027 slate (which would remain unchanged) illustrates the league's problem.
Penn State doesn't play Ohio State nor Michigan next season. Oregon and USC miss each other. Indiana and Ohio State -- who drew the largest audience for a B1G conference game over the first half of the season by far -- also don't meet.
Playing match-maker years in advance, obviously, leaves Big Ten teams exposed to schedules much more difficult or easy than anticipated. It also allows the Ohio States and the Oregons to play more high-level matchups, which in turn will generate high-level ratings.
This model has the potential to create other problems, however. The Big Ten simply doesn't have as many A- and B-level brands as the SEC, and the C brands (not naming names, but you know who they are) depend on getting Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon and USC into their stadiums X amount of times over Y amount of years in order to fill their own stadiums.
But those problems are lower on the food chain for the Big Ten. Such is life as a league with 18 mouths to feed, and a near 10-figure TV deal to fulfill.