The Big Ten doesn't know where its football championship games will be staged beyond next year's inaugural matchup in Indianapolis, but the league knows who will televise it: Fox Sports, which reached an agreement for the first six championship games on Wednesday. No word on how much Fox will pay for the game.
In one sense, the deal is a logical one, since Fox owns half of the Big Ten Network, which it helped create four years ago. But the parent company, which already broadcasts NFL games and baseball's World Series, had been reducing its college football inventory. Over the past few seasons, Fox had broadcast all the BCS bowls except the Rose Bowl, and televised the BCS Championship Games in 2007-09.
But ESPN outbid Fox for the BCS games, and the cable network will begin its four-year BCS deal in January, leaving Fox will little college presence.
That means the Big Ten championship game could be Fox's lone college football property, or at least its most visible, beginning next season.