Big Televen network

[Harrison]

Apparently, it debuts soon.  I beleive the inagural broadcast will be the Iowa- Nebraska girl's field hockey thriller.
Found a neat little poll on the website...where you can express your outrage to the cable providers.  I chose...not interested. Let's let them know.

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/

[ChicosBailBonds]

Apparently, it debuts soon.  I beleive the inagural broadcast will be the Iowa- Nebraska girl's field hockey thriller.
Found a neat little poll on the website...where you can express your outrage to the cable providers.  I chose...not interested. Let's let them know.

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/

It debuted last night, channel 220.  I watched the first 30 minutes which was all about football.  It will be a top notch network that I can assure you.  Too much money invested in it not to be.

I think most of the cable guys won't move on this until basketball or later in the football season.  The reason is simple, most of the good football games are on ESPN, ABC, etc.  However, most of the Big Ten conference basketball games are on BTN so those customers that were used to seeing their Badgers on 20 times a year or whatever, need BTN to do so.  That's when the crying will start in earnest.

I'm glad we broadcast it and plenty of cable customers are ditching cable for our product which is great for us.  As far as I'm concerned, cable can dig in their heels as long as they want...more customers for us.   

[Harrison]

is it free on Directv or part of the sportpacks?  I am a life long Hoosier fan and cannot watch there games since going to Directv.  Their games are carried on a local channel that is not a network local channel.   
The poll is probably bogus anyway, i am sure it will be rigged whereby all..."i could care less" votes will have never happened and all "it's an outrage" votes will be tallied a dozen times.

[ChicosBailBonds]

is it free on Directv or part of the sportpacks?  I am a life long Hoosier fan and cannot watch there games since going to Directv.  Their games are carried on a local channel that is not a network local channel.   
The poll is probably bogus anyway, i am sure it will be rigged whereby all..."i could care less" votes will have never happened and all "it's an outrage" votes will be tallied a dozen times.

Harrison, it's "free" in that it's part of the basic package.  No sports tier involved.  That's one of the things that has the cable companies freaked out.  We took it on the base tier, but they want to put it on the sports tiers (which BTN of course doesn't want to happen).

BTN has the rights to all college basketball games involving their teams, so local channels in Indiana and elsewhere will not be carrying those games as in years past unless the BTN releases those games to them...which is unlikely (unless it's a dog of a game).

[Harrison]

So now I'll get it and no one else will  .  Time warner and Comcast around here but i think you are probably right most people will pony up to watch their B10 hoops.  Sign up in Novemebrr and cancel in march.

One thing I have noticed with Directv.  At least last year, was the sports pack was a way better value to catch Mu hoops.  Most of their games were on the U or on the different regional networks Ie, MASN, or the one out of Conn.  Or obviously ESPN or ESPN2.  Instead of spending $100 for Full court hoops.  I spent $12 a month for 3-4 months and actually saw more Mu games than i could have on Full court hoops, for example the U games could not be seen with full court hoops.  all the while picking up 20-30 sports channels. Not bad.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Full Court is a crap shoot, for some schools it's a God send.  For example Iowa State was on Full Court 22 times last year...that's huge for Cyclones fans.  The Full Court schedule will come out pretty soon to us and I'll let you know how many times we're on.

Personally, I would get the half season Full Court as it's a better value, usually starts in early January....that is unless there are a bunch of MU games on prior to that date.   

[Harrison]

Absolutely agree unless you are kansas or some of the schools that have all the Pre-con games on Full court you pay for nothing in regards to MU.  Last year my recollection was Mu had 1 game on Full court hoops a day or so before the 1/2 price kicked in so you would have paid $50 to see one game.  but with my sports pack, it was uconn if I recall, I watched the Uconn game on MASn or NESn or whatever.  Last year if I bought the Full court even the full season i would have watched fewer games than by buying the sportspack whereby i saw every gmae that was on Full court plus the games on the U.
I realize this year may be different or they may change how that all works but last year was a simple no brainer.

[Dish]

I love college hoops as much as anyone and will watch any game, any time. That said, I (like most people who I've talked to who have Comcast AND are Big Ten alumini) could care less about the BTN. Meaningless sports, meaningless games in the sports that matter. Darren Rovell (a Northwestern alum living on the East Coast) said it best in his recent blog entry:

"And one more thing. Realize that the technology is getting better and better for fans to avoid you. I'm a Northwestern fan. My area doesn't have the Big Ten Network, which is broadcasting the first three games. I'm OK with that. I'll be loading my little live stat box on ESPN.com while listening to the WGN Radio call."

[rocky_warrior]

Last year if I bought the Full court even the full season i would have watched fewer games than by buying the sportspack whereby i saw every gmae that was on Full court plus the games on the U.

It was the same for me with Dish Network.  Just bought their sports pack (for $5.99/month) and was able to catch all of the full court games too - except one I believe.  Not a bad deal at all.  Since this is the inaugural year of the BE ESPN deal - the sports pack should be sufficient again since everything should be on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU or (hurl) ESPN360.  We already know the "big" OOC games will be nationally televised (Maui, Wisconsin), so no full court should be needed to watch MU this year either. 

[Harrison]

Not so sure every game will be on one of those 4 channels...there will still be games say Mu vs St.Johns that will not warrant being on either of those 4 channels but will be on Full Court hoops.  Yet, as you say thru the sports pack you can watch it via NESn or whatever those east sports channels are.  My recollection is NESN had all the Uconn, providence, Syracuse, and maybe St. johns games on it.  Masn also had a bunch and was there a NYC channel that had rutgers, St. Johns?, nova, etc?

But i do think you are right being #13 or whatever preseason should end up having a larger percentage of Mu games on ESPN, Espn 2 or ABC and CBS.  Very good for recruiting too. not only do we get to watch it but so do all the top hs players...boo yah.

[ChicosBailBonds]

I love college hoops as much as anyone and will watch any game, any time. That said, I (like most people who I've talked to who have Comcast AND are Big Ten alumini) could care less about the BTN. Meaningless sports, meaningless games in the sports that matter. Darren Rovell (a Northwestern alum living on the East Coast) said it best in his recent blog entry:

"And one more thing. Realize that the technology is getting better and better for fans to avoid you. I'm a Northwestern fan. My area doesn't have the Big Ten Network, which is broadcasting the first three games. I'm OK with that. I'll be loading my little live stat box on ESPN.com while listening to the WGN Radio call."

My guess when college hoops comes around, people will not be saying this.  Live stat box is great, but it's never going to replace watching it live on television.  I go to the radio and internet when tv isn't an option, as do most people.  But if it's an option, tv comes first.  When BTN goes to HD on September 15th, just another reason why Big Ten alums will want it.

[deerchaser]

There are actually about 3-4 NYC channels that pick up the Full Court/ESPN+ games.  It's a pretty sweet deal as they're all trying to fill up their airtime so they'll pick up almost any Big East game that is available.  I know when I go home that any MU game picked up by ESPN+ will be on one of either MSG, YES, or SNY.

[rocky_warrior]

Not so sure every game will be on one of those 4 channels...there will still be games say Mu vs St.Johns that will not warrant being on either of those 4 channels but will be on Full Court hoops. 

I stand corrected -  when the BE inked the new deal right before last season, this is what they said would happen in 2008 - and 66 games can be on Full Court (ERT)....

Every single intra-conference men's basketball contest will be televised. As a result, the BIG EAST Conference and its 16 members will reach more households than any other conference in the country. Specifically, ESPN will produce 139 of the 144 available regular season BIG EAST intra-conference men's basketball games - all except those five games belonging to CBS -- and will televise those contests on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPN Regional (ERT), ESPNU or ESPN360.

ESPN or ESPN2 will broadcast a minimum of 60 BIG EAST games each year: 49 regular season games (41 conference and eight home non-conference) and all 11 BIG EAST Championship games. Consequently, the BIG EAST will have four to five games broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2 each week during the conference season.

The BIG EAST will continue to be the only conference in the country to have each and every one of its men's basketball tournament games televised by ESPN. There were record audiences for the 2006 BIG EAST Championship, including the final game, which was the highest-rated cable tournament final of the year (2.58).

In addition, ESPN Regional will carry a minimum of 80 games (66 conference and 14 home non-conference) and continue its weekend Game of the Week package, which reaches approximately 30 percent of the nation's homes and has a total household reach of more than 30 million. Most games offered by ERT are also available nationally as part of ESPN Full Court, the pay subscription college basketball outer-market service.

[MUDPT]

The BTN should issue an apology to all Cub Cardinal fans that missed OUTS two weeks ago on FOX, while the BTN flashed their information on the screen.  As my roommate asked, is the BTN providing oral favors to FOX for this "expletive?"

[ChicosBailBonds]

The BTN should issue an apology to all Cub Cardinal fans that missed OUTS two weeks ago on FOX, while the BTN flashed their information on the screen.  As my roommate asked, is the BTN providing oral favors to FOX for this "expletive?"

Since Fox owns 49% of the BTN, I believe the answer would be....YES.   

[Dish]

Chicos-My biggest beef with the BTN would be the precedent it would set. While I understand Comcast owns VS and CSN Chicago (and the other CSN channnels), I don't want to pay the extra $1.10 a month for it. While someone might say "it's only $1.10 a month", then when the SEC Network comes along, they'll want the same deal. Down the road, the ACC, PAC 10, Big East, Big 12, will all expect the same deal. If the product was good enough (the best matchups), then it would obviously be worth it. Until we get to an "a la carte" option for cable television, I don't see the value in it.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Chicos-My biggest beef with the BTN would be the precedent it would set. While I understand Comcast owns VS and CSN Chicago (and the other CSN channnels), I don't want to pay the extra $1.10 a month for it. While someone might say "it's only $1.10 a month", then when the SEC Network comes along, they'll want the same deal. Down the road, the ACC, PAC 10, Big East, Big 12, will all expect the same deal. If the product was good enough (the best matchups), then it would obviously be worth it. Until we get to an "a la carte" option for cable television, I don't see the value in it.

That's a perfectly legit position to take.   I'd argue that the "best matchups" will be in place come conference hoops season where the BTN will basically broadcast about 85% of the conference games and you won't find them anywhere else.

As for A La Carte...you'll never see it.  If it went in that direction, the 500 channels that the FCC and Congress pushed so hard would go down to about 40 and they don't want that.  You're special interest channels for certain groups (gay Americans, African Americans, etc) would all go out of business because the larger channels in those carriage groups subsidize those.  It would be an economic collapse of that entire industry and people would bitch a fit because "their favorite channel" (which of course isn't the favorite of everyone else) would be scuttled. 

All you have to do is look at who owns these station groups to see what I'm talking about. If Viacom, for example, owns 20 stations ranging from MTV to LOGO (gay/lesbian programming) to Neopets to VH1 to Urge to  Comedy Central to atomfilms to BET to Spike TV to CMT, etc, etc.

Now, if you went to a la carte, that 40 cents you're paying now for CMT let's say (which maybe you could care less about) would go to about $10.  Something like Neopets would be gone completely.  Etc, etc.  Right now by bundling them all in together, customers get all those channels.  Now, I realize a lot of customers say they only want 10 or 20 channels.  Fine, but by doing that, the networks would have to kill all these other channels or charge $10, $20, $30 per sub on an a la carte basis to keep them going (because instead of receiving 40 cents from every sub, they would only receiving money from a few).

I don't think it will ever happen.


Other conferences may do this, the SEC is very much on the fence right now.  The Big East and Big 12 passed, but only until the next round of negotiations.

[mu_hilltopper]

Interesting stuff .. question .. what ever happened to paying for broadcasting/content through commercials?  Has the paradigm shifted so much that The Bowling Network can't sell ads to support the bulk of their budget, with cable fees representing a smaller portion?  Just curious.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Interesting stuff .. question .. what ever happened to paying for broadcasting/content through commercials?  Has the paradigm shifted so much that The Bowling Network can't sell ads to support the bulk of their budget, with cable fees representing a smaller portion?  Just curious.

With the advent of cable and satellite, the advertising model still is in play but the pay subscription has taken a big chunk of that.  The only true "commercial free" channels are things like HBO and Showtime.