FOX announces 2024 Friday night slate featuring Big Ten, Big 12

Fox Sports unveiled the first ever slate of games for its Friday night airings of college football, coming during the 2024 season. And the 12-game slate features a bevy of intriguing matchups.

All told, the game will feature teams from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Mountain West. Fox Sports already has broadcast deals with all three of those leagues. And the Big Ten will be filling out the lineup, primarily, with 12 teams from the new-look 18-team league set to play on a Friday night on Fox.

Check out the full slate of Friday night games with start times below.

Fox Sports’s full 2024 Friday night slate of college football

All times EST

September 13: Kansas State vs. Arizona, 8 p.m.
September 20: Illinois vs. Nebraska, 8 p.m.
September 27: Washington vs Rutgers, 8. p.m.
October 4: Oregon vs. Michigan State, 9 p.m.
October 11: Maryland vs. Northwestern, 8 p.m.
October 18: Purdue vs. Oregon, 8 p.m.
October 25: USC vs. Rutgers, 11 p.m.
November 8: UCLA vs. Iowa, 9 p.m.
November 15: Washington vs. UCLA, 9 p.m.
November 22: Michigan State vs. Purdue, 8 p.m.
November 29: UCF vs. Utah, 8 p.m.
December 6: Mountain West Championship, 8 p.m.

Fox announced the move shortly after it was reported in March.

“FOX is football, and our new Friday night package will make FOX the leader in America’s game throughout the weekend,” Fox president of insight and analytics Michael Mulvihill said in the release announcing the programming. “We’ve built our collegiate business by seizing opportunities in previously underutilized timeslots, first with BIG NOON SATURDAY and now on Friday nights. Our goal this fall is to have the No. 1 college football game on both Fridays and Saturdays and the top NFL game on Sundays.”

And the new featured games on Friday night aren’t going to usurp the “Big Noon Saturday” game that FOX has built up around its pregame show, “Big Noon Kickoff,” according to Marchand. In the release, FOX noted that its noon games have included the most-watched single game each of the past three seasons. And in 2023, the big noon game averaged just more than 6.7 million viewers a week, the best season on record for the programming.

One of the biggest consistent ratings bonanza’s for FOX in that noon slot is the annual clash between Michigan and Ohio State to end the regular season. Each of the past three seasons, that game has turned in monster ratings as the Wolverines and Buckeyes competed with a Big Ten title game berth and College Football Playoff stakes on the line.

The 2023 matchup, with both teams entering undefeated, brought in 19.07 million viewers, according to Sports Media Watch, which is the second-highest viewership in the history of the rivalry. In addition, the 9.0 rating is the third-highest on record behind only the 2006 “Game of the Century” and the 2016 matchup.