NBC has long been the home of the popular sports broadcast “Sunday Night Football.” Now it wants to get the word out about football on Saturday nights.
Thanks to a new deal that starts in earnest this year, NBC has gained rights to air Big Ten college football games on Saturday nights commencing September 2, all part of a scramble last year that gave new rights to the league to NBC and CBS, and saw ESPN give up its hold on the conference’s games. While Fox and CBS will air games on Saturday afternoons, NBC will show them in primetime — the first time the conference has enjoyed such a window on broadcast TV — creating an urgent need to inform sports fans across the nation.
“We never want to take anyone for granted. That could even be a die-hard Michigan State fan or an Ohio State fan,” says Lyndsay Signor, senior vice president of consumer engagement for NBC Sports, in an interview. NBCUniversal, which is adding the Big Ten package to its long-running coverage of Notre Dame football, sees a chance to win new viewers to both the NBC broadcast network and the Peacock streaming hub, she adds.
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To do so, the company will kick off a Big Ten Day, on Thursday, August 10, making sure information about the games and the franchise makes it ways to many different parts of its overall portfolio.
Viewers of “Today” and “Access Hollywood” will see nods to the Big Ten league, and, at Universal Parks in both Orlando and Hollywood, guests may experience an NBC Sports Grill & Brew. NBCUniversal has seeded many college campuses with themed tailgate paraphernalia so they can celebrate “Big Ten Day,” with schools in the conference agreeing to use social and digital media to call alumni attention to the events.
NBCU is also trying to galvanize its employee base, urging staffers to make known any affiliation they may have with a Big Ten school. That group may soon be bigger. after a move this weekend that saw the University of Oregon and the University of Washington acknowledge they intended to join the Big Ten in 2024. Last year, UCLA and USC made similar moves. “We are also harnessing the energy inside our building,” says Signor.
Count on NBCU to also make use of its new Saturday programming to call attention to its broader sports weekends. NBC will have several “big event” weekends that offer not only football on Saturdays and Sundays, but also Nascar racing, Premier League football and more, says Signor. “We will look at some of the ties between college football on Saturdays and teams on ‘Sunday Night’ as well,” she adds.
