Big Ten Channel Announced
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Leave a CommentThe Big Ten had a very big announcement today. Actually there was a few announcements involved. As of right now the Big Ten had its football and basketball games broadcasted on the ESPN family of networks (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, etc.). The contract expired after this year and negotiations weren’t just with ESPN. Fox had reportedly contacted the Big Ten, but nothing happened in regards to college football technically. CBS had also been interested, but it appears they may agree to terms with the Big East; they also have SEC games right now. Today the Big Ten announced that it will stay with the ESPN family of networks, which is the first part of the announcement.
The ESPN/ABC contract runs for 10 years. In 2006-2007 (for football) there will be 17 national/regional Big Ten games broadcast on ABC. On ESPN/ESPN2 there will be 23 national games, and then on ESPN+ there will be 18. Also, add in 10 more games on ESPNU or ESPN 360 (Internet viewers). That’s a total of 68 games that will be viewable. For men’s basketball there will be 135 games on the ESPN networks and 11 on CBS Sports.
I’m very happy that the Big Ten went back to ESPN/ABC. The main reason is that you will have a better chance of watching Big Ten games. The thing I can’t stand about games on CBS or what would’ve happened with Fox is that you really only have 1 channel to broadcast games on. With the new agreement you have ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU (for the lucky ones that get the station), and also channels that pickup ESPN+ games. That’s 5 different channels, which means that during the conference schedule for football you could be watching every game if they were all at the same time. Kudos to the Big Ten for getting a contract that will provide maximum exposure.
With all of that being said, let’s get to the bigger part of the Big Ten’s announcements today. That is the creation of the “Big Ten Channel.” The Big Ten Channel will be launched in August 2007 and will be as the name says, a channel dedicated to all Big Ten sports. It basically will be something like ESPNU or CSTV, but just for the Big Ten. This is a 20-year contract with the Big Ten and Fox Cable Networks (Fox will be the minority owners of the channel). Now, don’t jump the gun like I did when you first hearing about this. The channel will be affiliated with DIRECTV. Other affiliates such as Comcast are to be negotiated at a later time.
What I first thought would happen with this is that you wouldn’t be able to watch most of the Big Ten sports unless you had the Big Ten Channel. Not true. With the creation of the channel, the lower-profile football and basketball games will be broadcasted instead of not being on TV at all. What does this all mean for the ESPN/ABC contract then? In 2007 the exposure on ESPN/ABC actually goes up. The same amount of games will be broadcast on ABC for football, and then 1 more game will be broadcast on ESPN/ESPN2. There won’t be any ESPN+ or ESPNU with the Big Ten Channel. 35 total games will be played on the Big Ten Channel bringing the total of games televised up to 76. For basketball the total number of games televised will be up to 176 with the Big Ten Channel.
Back to football, each team in the Big Ten will be guaranteed to have 2 of its games broadcasted on the Big Ten Channel. I don’t think that necessarily means that Michigan for instance will be forced to have 2 of its games broadcasted on the Big Ten Channel, but that the channel will just syndicate the broadcast, or play it at a later time.
In total for all sports, 2006 will have 279 games on TV, and in 2007 there will be 507. So, the exposure will definitely go way up, which helps recruiting greatly. I like this idea a lot, now I just have to hope that Comcast picks up the station.
Big Ten Channel Fact Sheet (Big Ten)
Big Ten Channel FAQ (Big Ten)
Big Ten Conference ABC/ESPN Agreement Fact Sheet (Big Ten)
Announcement Press Release (Big Ten)
TV Comparison Chart (Big Ten)
Big Ten Channel to debut in 2007 (Chicago Tribune)
