Big Ten among football leagues Fox will feature on Friday night broadcasts

Fox will expand its coverage of college football with a package of Friday night games.

The schedule of games, which will include matchups from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Mountain West conferences, likely won’t be announced until late May or early June after conferences and the networks hold their selection meetings.

Friday games, which used to be confined to only the opening week of the season and day after Thanksgiving, are not out of the norm for all three conferences. The Big Ten has had a limited package since 2017, but those were on the Big Ten Network and FS1. The Big 12 had three Friday night matchups on ESPN last season and the Mountain West had a package of games on the CBS Sports Network along with two on FS1.

The college football package will fill a void for Fox on Friday nights during the fall when WWE’s “Friday Night SmackDown” moves to USA Network in October. A couple of games could air on Fox in September with “SmackDown” moving to FS1, which is what happened during the baseball playoffs and World Series.

It also will not be the first time Fox has tried to stake claim to what is considered an underutilized timeslot. It launched “Big Noon Saturday” in 2019, which has been successful. Last season’s package averaged 6.74 million viewers on Fox, an 8% increase over 2022.