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ESPN will be embarking on an unusual broadcasting task which is part of the new 12-team College Football Playoff.
The network’s broadcast job will cause a huge blow to the rivals NBC over the expanded playoff.
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The 11-1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish will play host to the 11-1 Indiana Hoosiers in the first-ever game of the College Football Playoff.
The game is set for Friday, December 20th at 8:00 pm Eastern and will air on ESPN and ABC.
The contest will also be the first Notre Dame game not to be broadcast on NBC or Peacock since 1990.
Journalist Timothy Burke reported on Bluesky that the Indiana-Notre Dame game will be the first Fighting Irish home game to air on a non-NBC network since November 17, 1990.
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On that date, the Fighting Irish faced the Penn State Nittany Lions in a game broadcast by ESPN.
Notre Dame and NBC currently have a broadcasting contract that will have the team’s home games remain on the network through 2029.
The deal was agreed on last year and NBC is said to be paying an annual fee of roughly $50 million.
NBC was one of numerous media companies that were interested in bids for the expanded CFP but lost out on acquiring those rights.
Due to the new playoff format, more Fighting Irish home games could air outside of the NBC network.
Notre Dame finished as the No. 7 seed which allowed ESPN to broadcast the game.
If the Fighting Irish finish between the No. 5 and No. 8 seed, as they did this campaign, ESPN or TNT, who sublicenses hand-picked first-round CFP games from ESPN, could have the chance to broadcast a game live from South Bend, Indiana.
Notre Dame has gotten big TV ratings for NBC this fall, per Nielsen figures cited by Sports Media Watch.
Two games each hit 4 million viewers, one against Northern Illinois in September and Army in November.
The most viewers for a Fighting Irish game came when they went on the road to take on the Texas A&M Aggies to start the season.
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That game reached close to 8 million people who watched the game on ABC.
