Rece Davis signs lucrative new deal with ESPN College GameDay after FOX Big Noon Kickoff pursuit

ESPN College GameDay host Rece Davis signed a new deal with the network after FOX and Big Noon Kickoff pursued the longtime sportscaster. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported Davis signed a new seven-year deal.

FOX reportedly made an “all-out effort” to get Davis away from ESPN and bring him to the network. However, he decided to stay with the Worldwide Leader.

“Davis has agreed to a new seven-year deal for tens of millions of dollars, according to sources briefed on the deal,” Marchand wrote. “The exact terms are unknown, but Davis accepted a slight hometown discount to remain at ESPN that will guarantee him lead hosting duties through the rest of the network’s College Football Playoff deal that runs until 2031-32. (The 59-year-old) has been with ESPN for three decades …

“On ‘Big Noon Kickoff,’ Davis would have replaced host Rob Stone. Davis would have also led the Men’s World Cup in 2026 and would have called college basketball for Fox. Fox already stole two ‘GameDay’ stalwarts in recent years: reporter Tom Rinaldi and analyst/researcher Chris (Bear) Fallica. Urban Meyer, a fixture now on ‘Big Noon,’ was formerly on ‘GameDay,’ but had coaching stints between the networks.”

What’s interesting regarding the Davis domino effect, as pointed out by Marchand, there was a game of musical chairs. Charles Davis is set to replace Gary Danielson on CBS’ telecasts of afternoon Big Ten college football as the latter goes into his final season in 2025.

However, before Charles Davis was tapped, CBS tried to get ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky. However unlike Rece Davis, Orlovsky does not have a new deal with the four-letter-network.

With Rece Davis now sticking to ESPN, hosting College GameDay for football and basketball, as well as providing play-by-play for both sports, it’s interesting to see a world where he was at FOX. If he went to the network for Big Noon Kickoff, it’s unclear where Rob Stone would’ve been placed, considering his hosting duties.

As Marchand wrote, the rivalry between the two college pregame shows during football season has only intensified. Big Noon currently features a cast of Stone, Meyer, Mark Ingram and Brady Quinn on the main panel.

GameDay added flare with the addition of Pat McAfee a few years ago and then Nick Saban this past season. They added to Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard and the legend himself, Lee Corso.