The Big Ten and Big Ten Network have signed a deal with Discover, making the credit card company the first presenting sponsor of the conference’s football championship game. This year's game will take place on Dec. 2 at Lucas Oil Stadium and will air on Fox. What was described as a multiyear agreement and certainly becomes one of the conference’s largest sponsorships includes championship-game and regular-season TV inventory on Fox, FS1 and BTN, including in-game features; inclusion in the game’s logo, which will appear on the field during the contest; official credit card designation; social and digital media; and a presence at all Big Ten championships. Sponsors can buy Big Ten media, digital and other sponsorship assets from one place under a recent agreement between Learfield, the Big Ten and BTN. “We can sell across platform now. We have scale we did not before, and all of that is key to deals like this,’’ said BTN VP/Sales Jim Reeder. Discover's other large sports sponsorships include the NHL, and the company held the title rights to the Orange Bowl from '11-14.
