You might have caught the news on Wednesday: The 2023 Michigan State-Washington football game, one of the more notable nonconference matchups in the coming college football season, will be exclusively on Peacock, the NBC-owned streaming service, as part of NBC’s new media rights deal with the Big Ten.
Spartans Wire notes that Michigan State fans are (rightly) furious about the development. Spartans Wire gathered tweets from Michigan State fans. One fan tweeted the following:
“Move a game to Ford Field to help NBC/Big Ten? Fine. Great, actually. Kick off a top three game of the season on Peacock? Alright, there’s no spin-zoning out of that one. That’s incredibly upsetting.”
That was representative of the reaction to the move to relegate MSU-Washington to a streaming-only service without a television outlet.
USC fans are sitting here wondering, “Is this how it’s going to be in the Big Ten? We just spent a decade dealing with Pac-12 Network!”
This will not fly.
Let’s put it this way: If USC games are going to be on Peacock, they better be the cupcake games which — in this 2023 season — are being shown on Pac-12 Network. USC-San Jose State and USC-Nevada are the only games which can be put on Peacock. USC playing Stanford in a 2026 nonconference game (remember, that will be a nonconference matchup when USC is in the Big Ten) cannot be on Peacock.
Yes, USC is getting a lot more money in the Big Ten, but part of the move to the Big Ten was based on escaping reduced media visibility and accessibility. Leaving Pac-12 Network to go on Peacock? That was not part of the plan.
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