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DREW SHARP: Big Ten Network is failing by not helping teams crack Top 25, plus U-M, MSU picks
October 13, 2007
BY DREW SHARP
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
The Big Ten Network has failed one of its primary objectives -- broadening the product brand.
The diminished television distribution of Big Ten football has cost the conference in the national rankings. You could always count on one or two Big Ten teams filling out the bottom of the Associated Press media and USA Today coaches polls, but there isn't one Big Ten team ranked 20th through 25th in the AP poll.
How is that possible when you've got a 5-1 Purdue and 5-1 Indiana? It's primarily because voters don't have as much access to those games as previously under the conference's old cable arrangement with ESPN. The Big Ten had the exclusive national window noon-3 p.m. Eastern on ESPN or ESPN2. That window is now shared with the Big East and the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Mid-American Conference has taken over the noon ESPN regional network position that weekly put Michigan or Michigan State on a local non-cable channel.
That's valuable exposure that the Big Ten willingly -- and foolishly -- sacrificed for the sake of exerting more control over product distribution.
As a former AP football voter, I remember the value of that noon national game because you'd rather watch teams perform as much as possible rather than merely relying on the Sunday morning summaries for your pertinent information. When you're looking for teams to fill out your ballot, you're more inclined to vote for the team that you saw play -- even if it was only for a half.
The Big Ten's broader exposure compensated for its periodically poor on-field quality. The BTN, with its limited access, doesn't provide that benefit. The conference insists the BTN has been a rousing success -- despite the Big Ten's ongoing distribution feud with Comcast, the largest cable provider in the Big Ten states. The BTN is only available to 30% of Detroit-area households.
It took ESPN2 several years to build the 30 million subscribers that the Big Ten Network has accrued since its debut two months ago. The Saturday football ratings are strong relative to other cable programming. But exactly what are the BTN numbers when there isn't live football programming? What are numbers for the other fall sports, archival game footage and institutional propaganda that basically comprises 90% of BTN programming?
The Big Ten won't say.
The conference inevitably loses the longer this grudge match among the greedy between it and Comcast continues. An early casualty of this stalemate is the conference's presence at the bottom of the national rankings.
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