As part of last Thursday’s Media/Photo Day festivities at Ohio Stadium, we headed to the third floor of the southeast tower where postgame interviews are usually conducted. Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany and Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman have been on a barnstorming tour of the Midwest in recent days, trying to garner support for the conference’s exclusive television channel. They had already attended a lunchtime gathering in Columbus, which featured Mayor Michael Coleman and Buckeye head coach Jim Tressel, and now they were utilizing the opportunity of the media’s only permissible in-depth visit with the football team to continue their campaign to get the Big Ten Network onto cable television.
As of this point, none of Central Ohio’s three major cable providers- Time Warner, WOW! and Insight- have put the new network on their systems. With Ohio State’s first two games slated to be shown on BTN, fans without tickets are starting to get antsy. The major sticking point in the negotiations is the network’s insistence on being available on basic cable, while the providers feel it would work better on a digital or sports tier (which would mean a higher fee to the customer), if they even want the channel at all. And it’s not just central Ohio where the network has hit roadblocks. Comcast, which is the largest cable provider within the eight states that comprise the Big Ten, is also not on board.
The genesis of the network stemmed from conversations that Delany had with ABC/ESPN in early 2005. The ten-year contract that the Big Ten had with those networks was in its home stretch, and the commissioner was getting bad vibes during the talks. ABC/ESPN felt the property wasn’t as valuable (which is curious considering ABC wanted to move last year’s OSU/Michigan game to 3:30 so the West Coast wouldn’t have to get out of bed at 9AM to see it), and there were also syndication problems with men’s basketball. ESPN also wanted to further break with tradition and show more Thursday night games, and they wanted more games for their fledgling ESPN-U and ESPN 360 channels.
Delany felt that the conference had contributed mightily not only to ABC and ESPN, but also to the growth of ESPN 2 and ESPN Classic. Despite those networks feeling that Big Ten athletics weren’t as valuable, Delany and others believed in their product and put the wheels in motion to come up with their own network. The folks at Fox were very receptive to the conference’s ideas for how the channel would be presented (including a ban on alcohol advertising), so they partnered up with the league. A state-of-the-art studio has been created in Chicago, and BTN has hired on a full slate of announcing teams. They have cut deals nationally with Direct TV, AT&T and the Armed Services Network, as well as 75 cable companies throughout the Midwest. But as kickoff for the 2007 season approaches, many
of the large carriers aren’t on board, with Columbus being a flashpoint since the Youngstown State and Akron games are already on BTN’s docket.
Delany told the Media Day gathering that he was warned that these negotiations would be very public and would come down to crunch time. The commissioner admitted that none of the 31 broadcast negotiations he has been involved with since 1989 have gone smoothly, yet he probably didn’t anticipate such a publicly contentious circus either.
Mark Silverman and Delany both emphasized that almost every facet of this deal was negotiable on their end, with the major exception of not wanting to be anywhere but basic cable. When the facts and figures started becoming public earlier this year, it was revealed that BTN was asking for $1.10 per subscriber per month from anyone wanting to pick up the channel. Only ESPN, at $2.21, was higher, while a more established network like TNT was asking .89. Again, the Big Ten Network has said that price is flexible, but being anywhere but basic cable isn’t. It has been estimated that in order to ensure that the Youngstown State opener at Ohio Stadium can be shown, a cable company would have to sign on by approximately August 23rd.
Silverman, whose background includes time working for Disney, The History Channel and other networks, followed Delany’s comments by stating that he would put 50/50 odds on a deal getting done with Time Warner in Columbus by the beginning of the season. He felt somewhat perplexed by Time Warner since they themselves operate sports networks in Milwaukee, Rochester and Syracuse, all of which are on basic cable and none of which have anywhere near the football or basketball programming that BTN is set to offer. Both Delany and Silverman referred to how these cable companies have room for food channels, bike channels and dog channels, yet seem hesitant to take on a network that would seem to be as appealing to Midwest sports fans as you can get. Of course, as Buckeye 50’s Gregg Watson pointed out, people are interested in food 365 days a year, not just during football season.
Personally, as a WOW! subscriber, I certainly hope a deal gets done here in Columbus soon. I’m sure our readers around the Midwest who may have Comcast or another cable company would like to see this done. But we’re getting dangerously close to the start of the season, and to only have 50/50 odds with Time Warner is not a good spot.
I would love to have BTN at my disposal. As a football fan, it would provide another outlet to see Big Ten teams play, and if you took a look at my shelf of video tapes (yeah, yeah, I haven’t moved into the DVD recording realm just yet), you’d figure out I spend a great deal of time watching ESPN Classic, so the Big Ten Network’s Tuesday night replays of classic contests would be must-see-TV for me. Basketball season would be great, too, as BTN plans to show a ton of games this winter.
Jim Delany lashed out in the press earlier this summer when it was suggested that an Indiana fan would have no interest in, say, an Iowa/Wisconsin volleyball match. While I’ll readily admit that my Big Ten interest is with football and basketball, I’ve never, even before starting with Buckeye 50, solely honed in on Ohio State. I think most fans have more than a passing interest in how the other league teams are doing, so the channel can show not only all schools, but also a mix of sporting events. Maybe I don’t get into the Olympic sports, but I won’t deny that there’s probably an audience for them.
These negotiations remind me of several years ago when the Ohio News Network was trying to get on basic cable. Time Warner here in central Ohio wasn’t interested, so WBNS-TV, the local CBS affiliate here in Columbus, was going to be yanked off of Time Warner by the Dispatch, which is run by the Wolfe family and who owns Channel 10 and ONN as well as Ohio State radio flagship station 1460 The Fan. Time Warner went as far as to send out antennas to all its subscribers so they’d be able to pull in Channel 10’s signal if they took themselves off cable. To this day, ONN is not on Time Warner’s basic
cable lineup, although it is on their digital tier. This makes me wonder if Time Warner will pick up BTN, even though losing Ohio State football and basketball is a much different animal than not having CBS’s lineup. I also wonder if the other two big guns in Columbus cable, Insight and my company WOW!, are waiting to see what Time Warner does.
As Silverman pointed out in the press conference, none of us get to pick and choose what cable stations we want available on our TV. Of course, none of us have much say over what most networks show. The cable companies that are concerned over whether BTN can fill 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with programming are the same ones who show networks who flood their daily lineup with reality programming. I could give two hoots about reality shows on any network, but someone must be watching them so they keep coming.
I think the Big Ten Network is a good idea, and I think it would go over well in the Midwest. I’m not going to knock any specific channels that are on cable now, but I have to believe that BTN could fit in along with some of these “niche” networks that populate cable today.
And I’ll give the Big Ten credit for their timing. Sure, Delany got bad signals from ABC/ESPN, but with Ohio State’s lousy non-conference schedule, the time was ripe to pick up Buckeye games and try to force the cable companies’ hands. And no other Big Ten football team has any type of non-league matchup that would equate to what we’ve seen from OSU/Texas the last two years. Sure, half of the Big
Ten plays Notre Dame, but I’ll be surprised if the Irish win any of those games. Remember, ABC will still have first crack at what Big Ten game(s) they want to air each week, but they can’t be exactly salivating over anyone’s September schedules.
We’ll see how things shape up over the next ten days or so, but Delany and Silverman’s tour of the Midwest (which Delany likened to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigning) seems to be a bit desperate. I’m all for what they’re trying to accomplish, but it’s getting late in the game. One saving grace for the moment- Silverman did say that as far as he knows, there are no restrictions with Direct TV corporate subscribers (i.e. sports bars), so you may need to get to your favorite watering hole early on the 1st and 8th of September.
To stay updated on the latest goings-on with the negotiations and to see what the new network will have to offer, visit www.bigtennetwork.com.
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Buckeye 50 Editorial -
BIG TEN NETWORK MAKES
ITS CASE
8/13/07
By Joe-S-U
