The Big Ten attempted the unprecedented in the 2024 football season as the largest major conference ever assembled, with four of the 18 members located thousands of miles from the epicenter and three TV networks sharing the inventory with predetermined broadcast windows.
It created logistical obstacles that required months of planning to overcome or mitigate.
The Hotline reached out to Big Ten in January and asked the conference to assess the assimilation process for USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, with a focus on media and officiating. We also dug into the matter of Friday night kickoffs, a curiosity for the West Coast contingent.
The end result of our inquiry is the following Q&A with Kerry Kenny, the Big Ten’s chief operating officer who oversees media strategy and works with the conference’s partners, Fox, CBS and NBC, along with the Big Ten Network. (Kenny has numerous other responsibilities, as well.)
Two notes on the format:
The questions include background information designed to provide readers with proper context and create a conversational tone. As a result, several are rather lengthy.
In some cases, the questions (in italics) have been tweaked from the original for the sake of clarity, but Kenny’s answers are unchanged.
Wilner Hotline: Let’s start with the Friday night games. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel made it clear in public comments last fall that the Wolverines won’t play on Friday night, and my presumption is that the same goes for Ohio State and Penn State. In 2024, the West Coast schools, which make up less than 25 percent of the members, filled almost 40 percent of the Friday night slots. Will that continue, or does the conference plan to balance out the Friday night inventory?
Kerry Kenny: This year brought many new and complex elements into the Big Ten’s TV process: Three full broadcast windows in fixed positions, West Coast travel that needed to be balanced, and an expanded College Football Playoff race that deepened the pool of games with a postseason impact late in the season. We worked with our media partners to evaluate the impact of the Friday night game time window when games would otherwise be televised during a busy Saturday slate of games, and we’ve appreciated the additional visibility and promotion that this creates for our student-athletes and institutions. Each season is its own puzzle to piece together when it comes to the Friday night inventory, so we’ll evaluate the feedback and, as always, work towards a balanced schedule for the 2025 season.
Hotline: Moving to Saturdays, what were your thoughts on the weekly TV selection process and any complications caused by the time zones? For the most part, the West Coast schools struggled when asked to play in the 12 p.m. (ET) window. Will the conference and Fox reduce (or cap) the number of 12 p.m. ET kickoffs for the West Coast schools? And what about ‘Big Noon’? It’s the conference’s premier TV platform, but the only opportunity for West Coast schools to participate carries a serious competitive challenge with the long trips and early body clock kickoffs. Is there anything that can be done to provide a better experience for the West Coast schools in the ‘Big Noon’ window?
Kenny: The 2024 season was a series of firsts – not just in the Big Ten, but across the sport – and we learned a lot through watching how things played out in the TV process along with the direct feedback we always gather from network partners and institutions. Ultimately, there are aspects of the process that won’t change during the term of the agreements, but there are opportunities to refine certain areas of the process after each season. Each season and each matchup is unique in the impact on the teams involved, and it’s our role as a conference to find ways to tighten the impact on a particular school or group of schools from one season to the next.
Hotline: What was the experience like for the Big Ten teams that traveled west in terms of logistics, operations, amenities, etc.? Were there any that need to be tweaked for next season?
Kenny: UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington are great hosts with fantastic facilities. There were no issues with locker room size or team entry or exit from stadiums. I think the Rose Bowl has the biggest visiting locker room in college football. And we heard from Midwest fans visiting the Rose Bowl, Autzen Stadium, Husky Stadium and Memorial Coliseum for the first time that they had an awesome experience; these are great schools, iconic venues and fan bases with rich traditions. Likewise for our media partners, this was often their first experience with these schools, and everything went very well, thinking about new camera placements, a larger scale production and so forth. As with any season, it’s important to gather feedback and create a consistent approach in areas where we can impact the game day experience, while letting the experts on each campus manage things locally at the high level they have done for many years.
Hotline: Was the Big Ten Network (BTN) satisfied with the production and operations on the West Coast, not only during game broadcasts but also the weekly content needed for studio shows, etc.? My understanding is some of the schools were better prepared than others to meet the BTN requirements. What was learned throughout the process that can be applied to the 2025 season?
Kenny: All four schools, UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington, were outstanding partners in their transition to the Big Ten. Each started from a different place, whether that was infrastructure or staffing and responsibilities, but ultimately ended up in a position to deliver events and programming at a very high level, and I think it showed in the quality of the broadcasts and content for shows. It was also great to add experienced West Coast voices like Ashley Adamson, Yogi Roth and Guy Haberman (among others) to the BTN team this year to help connect the traditional and new Big Ten fan bases.
Also, I should mention it was not just production value, but participation from incredible school alumni, campus partners, their facilities and the local campus community. Certainly, a lot of what was learned over the past two years – familiarity with venues, introducing workflows, adjusting for a new time zone, BTN’s approach to producing original storytelling – can be applied to 2025. By the time we get to May, we’ll be done with firsts, putting us in a great position for 2025-26. Ratings were very strong; fans are excited to see new matchups but also enjoy the accessibility that BTN brings on TV and streaming with BTN+, and we still have a few months left in the academic year.
Hotline: Being fully candid, I was disappointed in the level of Big Ten officiating. And I’m not referring to the 50-50 calls on pass interference that always drive fans insane, or to targeting, which is so difficult to adjudicate. Instead, my surprise was the number of issues with the mechanics of officiating or the role of the new replay center. Three examples come to mind immediately: 1) The onside kickoff issue in the Michigan-Minnesota game (which the conference addressed a few days later, to its credit). 2) The missed illegal substitution in Washington’s opener that resulted in the UW player suffering a serious injury at the hands of the illegal 12th man. 3) The goal-line sequence in the USC-Minnesota game in which a touchdown was awarded without clear evidence. (That one blew my mind.) I have heard from many fans, and even campus officials, who thought they had left those types of mistakes behind upon moving into the Big Ten. From that standpoint, I’d like to know how the conference felt about the overall performance of the officials. Also, did the replay center provide the desired level of oversight? Is there anything in the replay process that needs changing after Year 1 of the new system?
Kenny: We were pleased with the overall performance of our officials this year. The goal is always to get better. When you’re talking about 18 teams and 12 games a season — that’s tens of thousands of snaps; fast, difficult calls, that officials get right, far more often than wrong, each season – it’s a high bar to be perfect 100 percent of the time, but that’s the goal and we have the best officials in college football. We’re pleased with the addition of the Big Ten Replay Center and how our replay officials performed this season; however, as always, we’ll evaluate the feedback and see how we can improve in 2025.
Hotline: Lastly, I realize the Big Ten devoted hundreds, if not thousands of people-hours to assimilating the West Coast schools. But there are always unexpected developments. Could any issues be categorized as pleasant surprises? And sticking with that theme, were there any unforeseen hurdles?
Kenny: I wouldn’t say it was a “surprise,” but it was great to see and experience the quick and easy camaraderie that organically developed between our member institutions, both new and old. I give a lot of credit to our West Coast schools and fan bases who played a big role in the incredibly smooth assimilation. Something we of course anticipated and all had to work through were the logistics. Integrating four schools – on two different integration timelines – with a diversity of sports, and each with unique travel, weather, scheduling and competition considerations, provided all the challenges and opportunities you might have imagined. But everyone was open, communicative, and singularly focused on figuring out how to provide the best experience possible for our student-athletes and fans in each and every sport. We knew going in we would learn a lot and would continue to adjust as needed. I think we’ve done well and that’s a testament to the Big Ten staff and to the thousands of people on campus at each of our 18 institutions.
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