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Posts Tagged Big Ten Network

IU TV schedule released

by in Media | September 11th, 2007

bigten.jpgThe Hoosiers’ 2007-08 television schedule’s just been released, and guess what: Big Ten Network rules the day:

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Nov. 4 North Alabama (exhibition) Bloomington, Ind. 12 p.m. BTN
Nov. 10 Pembroke State (exhibition) Bloomington, Ind. 8 p.m. BTN
Nov. 12 Chattanooga Bloomington, Ind. 7 p.m. BTN

CHICAGO INVITATIONAL CHALLENGE
Nov. 18 Longwood Bloomington, Ind. 12 p.m. BTN
Nov. 20 UNC Wilmington Bloomington, Ind. 7 p.m. BTN
Nov. 23 Illinois State Hoffman Estates, Ill 8:30 p.m. BTN
Sears Centre
Nov. 24 Xavier/Kent State Hoffman Estates, Ill 6/8:30 p.m. BTN
Sears Centre

ACC-BIG TEN CHALLENGE
Nov. 27 Georgia Tech Bloomington, Ind. 7 p.m. ESPN

Dec. 1 at Southern Illinois Carbondale, Ill. 9:30 p.m. ESPNU
Dec. 3 Tennessee State Bloomington, Ind. 7 p.m. BTN
Dec. 8 Kentucky Bloomington, Ind. 4 p.m. CBS
Dec. 15 Western Carolina Bloomington, Ind. 8 p.m. BTN
Dec. 22 Coppin State Bloomington, Ind. 12 p.m. BTN
Dec. 29 Chicago State Bloomington, Ind. 7 p.m. BTN
Jan. 2 at Iowa Iowa City, Iowa 9 p.m. BTN
Jan. 8 at Michigan Ann Arbor, Mich. 7 p.m. ESPN
Jan. 13 Illinois Bloomington, Ind. 1/4:30 p.m. CBS
Jan. 17 at Minnesota Minneapolis, Minn. 9 p.m. ESPN/ESPN 2
Jan. 20 Penn State Bloomington, Ind. 2 p.m. BTN
Jan. 23 Iowa Bloomington, Ind. 9 p.m. BTN
Jan. 26 Connecticut Bloomington, Ind. 1 p.m. CBS
Jan. 31 at Wisconsin Madison, Wisc. 9 p.m. ESPN/ESPN2
Feb. 3 Northwestern Bloomington, Ind. 12 p.m. BTN
Feb. 7 at Illinois Champaign, Ill. 9 p.m. ESPN/ESPN2
Feb. 10 at Ohio State Columbus, Ohio 1 p.m. CBS
Feb. 13 Wisconsin Bloomington, Ind. 7 p.m. BTN
Feb. 16 Michigan State Bloomington, Ind. 9 p.m. ESPN
Feb. 19 Purdue Bloomington, Ind. 7 p.m. ESPN
Feb. 23 at Northwestern Evanston, Ill. 8 p.m. BTN
Feb. 26 Ohio State Bloomington, Ind. 7 p.m. ESPN
March 2 at Michigan State East Lansing, Mich. 12 p.m./2 p.m. BTN/CBS
March 5 Minnesota Bloomington, Ind. TBD BTN/ESPN/ESPN2
March 8 or 9 at Penn State University Park, Pa. 3 p.m. BTN/ESPN/CBS
March 13-16 Big Ten Tournament Indianapolis, Ind. TBD BTN/CBS

March 20-22 or March 21-23 NCAA Tournament First and Second Rounds
March 27-29 or March 28-30 NCAA Regionals
April 5-7 NCAA Final Four, Alamodome, San Antonio, Texas
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Grrrr. That’s — count ‘em — at least 17, and as many as 21, games to be televised on the Big Ten Network this year, running the gamut from who-cares preseason exhibitions to mid-year showdowns with Wisconsin and Michigan State. It also looks like early portions of the Big Ten Tourney will be on BTN too.

It’s not like our Big Ten Network complaints go noticed by anyone anyway, but consider me officially angry. I’m angry at the Big Ten for caring far more about the bottom line than about ensuring as widespread a penetration for its athletics as possible, and I’m angry at cable companies like Comcast for stubbornly holding out on their right hand while they help roll out an SEC network (!!!) on their left.

Listen, assholes: You’re just forcing us away from your product. Instead of selling us all cable, building brand loyalty and getting our monthly fees, you’re pushing us into crowded areas (bars) where we will all share one TV and one satellite. Or, of course, we will just pony up next month’s disposable TV income on a dish of our own. If this — concentrating your market share to bars, and pushing 18-34 males away from service subscription — is your version of a solid business plan, by all means, keep doing what you’re doing. It’s just us loyal fans getting screwed, that’s all.

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Comcast failing miserably at viral marketing

by in Media | August 21st, 2007

comcast2.jpgVia FanHouse comes Brian Cook’s tale of inexplicable stupidity in the war between Comcast Cable and the Big Ten Network for the hearts of minds of Big Ten fans everywhere. Whatever genius PR firm Comcast currrently employs decided to get down to the nitty and do some astroturf marketing … and any fan will have a brain will see right through it. The sample message, from Michigan State’s Scout.com equivalent:

I’m a big fan of State sports so I went to the Big 10 Network’s kick-off party in East Lansing last week. Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delaney was there telling everybody how great this new TV package is going to be for college football and b-ball fans. WHAT A CROCK! Delaney is like the emperor who wore no clothes…the BTC has already sold its best games to ABC and ESPN. How delusional is Delaney and these other Big 10 greedmongers who want to charge us for the games we’d be able to see on our local cable station? If you want to learn more about the Big 10′s big time rip off, I found a web site that explains a lot… www.puttingfansfirst.org

VICTORY FOR MSU!!!

Riiiiiiight. This would be obvious just for its blatant threadjacking potential, but what really takes the cake is that these posts are all coming from brand new posters. They’ve popped up on Northwestern and Michigan’s Rivals sites, too. It’s so obvious, so poorly constructed as some marketer’s idea of a Big Ten message board troll, it’s an insult to Big Ten message board trolls everywhere.

Which brings us all back to the BTN vs. Cable debate in the first place, one on which I’m slowly beginning to side with the Big Ten Network. In a place like Chicago, or Indianapolis, or Detroit, the Big Ten Network has just as much of a right to be tacked on to basic cable the Food Network, or Home and Garden, or the Travel Channel, or any number of other small-share cable stations that raise our basic price every year. East Coast networks? Put it on a sports tier, or make people subscribe to DirecTV. But it might be time for Comcast’s midwest affiliates to shape up and give the BTN a spot on its basic system, and end the pissing contest already. Or banish Rachel Ray forever. It’s Comcast’s choice.

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I, for one, welcome our Big Ten overlords

by in Media | August 17th, 2007

big_ten_network.gifA helpful IU student passes along the Big Ten Network’s, and IU’s, latest attempts at pushing public opinion decidedly in their favor:

On August 30, the Big Ten Network (BTN) will be launched nationwide.The BTN is a first-of-its-kind partnership between the eleven Big Ten universities and a major television provider.Through the network, IU students and fans will have the opportunity to see an unprecedented number of Big Ten sporting events, including football and basketball.

The broad appeal of intercollegiate athletics at IU calls for the widespread distribution of the Big Ten Network.The network is currently in discussions with all cable and satellite providers nationwide. As an IU student season ticket holder in football or basketball, you should be able to have the opportunity to watch the BTN among the 70 or so channels included with your standard or basic level of local cable service. As a loyal Hoosier fan and IU student, the best thing you can do to get the BTN as part of your basic service is to contact your local cable provider or satellite company, and ask that the network be added to your basic package.

Our student fans are great supporters of the Hoosiers – please call 1-866-WANT-B10 today so that your voice can be heard regarding the Big Ten Network.Click on the video link below, and IU football coach Bill Lynch will direct you through this process.

Go Hoosiers!

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1119323716?bclid=1119240676&bctid=1119262210

That’s right, kids. Don’t have the Big Ten Network? Streak the quad! Destroy campus art and architecture in a bizarre display of Duke victory-esque joy! Burn it down! Burn it down!

Since most students have tickets, I’d argue this isn’t as large an issue as it is for people who, like us, live in large metropolitan areas and can’t watch our teams because two old white guys are bickering about price structure. Can we get this figured out already? Please?

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Big Ten expansion: Bring on the Cardinals

by in Opponents | July 30th, 2007

card-head-clr.jpgBrian at MGoBlog has a great breakdown of all of the prospective teams the Big Ten may look to add in the next couple of years, which ranges from the very awesome and yet unlikely (Texas) to the far more probable (Rutgers, Syracuse). Brian’s look takes into account the importance of academic continuity between the added school and the conference as it currently stands, and he comes up with a final list. His ultimate preference? Texas. Next best? Notre Dame. Pretty straightforward there. Also probably not going to happen, which he readily admits.

Barring those teams entering the conference, though, I think adding Rutgers or Syracuse would be a mistake. Not only does Rutgers football have all the territorial markings of “flash-in-the-pan,” Rutgers basketball has never been good, and they don’t really bring secondary or Olympic sports to the table, either. Syracuse’s basketball program is tempting, but their football program is bad enough to warrant serious caution. Not to mention aesthetics: do we really need another horrible blue-and-orange clad team in this conference?

No, I think the ultimate solution lies just south of IU, in Louisville. The Cardinals have big-money programs set up in both football and basketball, they’d let the conference spread its recruiting wings even further south, and it would add the Cardinal-crazy haven of Louisville, which just so happens to be of the 20 biggest cities in the country, believe it or not. (I know: I didn’t believe it either. It’s true.) With the exception of the Kentucky Derby, a once-a-year fixation, and a AAA baseball team, the Cardinals are Louisville’s professional sports teams. Plenty of money and attention — and a nice big market for that new network — lies just down I-65, if the Big Ten is willing to make the trip through Southern Indiana.

Sound too perfect to be true? It might be: the one problem Brian cites is academics. Louisville’s medical research wing is up-and-coming, and, according to Wikipedia, the median ACT score for enrollment is up from 20.2 in 1995 to just around 24; not bad, but certainly nothing to write home about.

So I open it up to you, noted ITH readers: are Louisville’s academics poor enough to warrant their exclusion from the Big Ten? Are the academics even bad? If so, does the market and the geography outweigh those concerns? Who do you prefer for expansion? What did you get on your ACT? Thoughts in the comments.

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Yes, but will we see the games?

by in Media | July 24th, 2007

bigtennetwork.jpgWe’ve done a solid amount of work here in the early goings of the new IU athletics season — most of it done by the prolific Big A — but among our notifications and analysis, we’ve been ignoring one crucial question: will the Big Ten network be available in our area?

The Hoosier Report has been all over this during the off-season, and now, some of the MSM folks that cover IU are hopping on as well. The Bloomington Herald-Times’ Chris Korman spoke with both representatives of the Big Ten Network, and with Comcast, in an attempt to see just what was holding a deal between the network and major cable provider back. The problem — similar to a rift between Major League Baseball and Time Warner earlier this year — is the tier system. Comcast wants to put the Big Ten Network on a by-choice sports package; BTN wants to be included in the basic cable package, and paid $1.10 for every basic cable subscriber.

Essentially, the options are this:

1. Comcast caves and puts the network on its basic package, and charges every Comcast subscriber a buck-plus for the Big Ten Network.
2. The Big Ten Network caves and agrees to be a part of the sports tier, which packages a bunch of different sports networks for $4.95 a month.
3. Neither cave, Comcast says screw it, and the Big Ten Network goes forward in its inaugural season giving its fans just one option for coverage: DirecTV.
Kelvin Sampson, outraged at the fact that his loyal fanbase has been so alienated, decides to personally hand-deliver season tickets to everyone who writes or reads this blog. Note: this is unlikely to happen.

Continue reading this post »

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