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Fox’s Friday Night Lights

As the Big Ten expanded, Fox tried to extend its successful noontime programming strategy to another traditionally uncompetitive dead zone: Friday nights. So far, it’s working.

Nebraska v Penn State big ten football
Fox still puts its best games in the noon Saturday window, obviously, but its executives believe that a lack of competition on Friday nights will attract big audiences to the network. Photo: Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
John Ourand
September 24, 2024

When programming their schedules, sports TV executives tent to adhere to certain truisms. Five years ago, for example, everyone around college football clamored for primetime Saturday night windows where all the networks would put their best college football games. In 2019, Fox turned that strategy on its head and started moving its most competitive games into Saturday’s noon window—Big Noon as it’s now called, not to be confused with the latest spiked seltzer concoction. Mike Mulvihill, Fox Sports’s top research executive, was among those who pushed for the move, arguing that Fox’s best game would perform better against less competition in the noon window, rather than against the other networks’ best games in primetime.