The Big Ten Network - the highly anticipated television channel dedicated to Big Ten college athletics is set to air at least 38 football games, 105 men's basketball games and 55 women's basketball games in the next year - launches this week.
The only problem is that it may be weeks or even months, before the network shows up in your living room, depending on which company provides your televsion service.
As one of the premier conferences in the nation with a very strong and loyal fan base, the Big Ten Network wants to be part of basic cable and satellite service. If you subscribe to DirectTV or AT&T U-verse, you have the network as of today. But if you subscribe to Comcast or Charter, you’ll have to wait until Big Ten Network makes a deal with them, which at this point, seems far from happening - especially with Comcast.
Comcast Decides to Sit on the Sidelines
Comcast is the biggest holdout because it provides cable television to 35 percent of the homes in the Big Ten Network’s core Midwest target area.
Comcast argues that the Big Ten Network should be placed on Comcast’s sports tier, claiming that Big Ten Network will have a niche audience, so it should be placed on the same tier as the NFL Network and NBA TV. If Comcast got their way, customers would have to pay for that entire tier of service, which Big Ten Network argues, makes no sense.
The Big Ten Network argues that they should be housed on the extended basic tier of service, which provides a much larger audience.
Big Ten Network stated on their website, “If you already get 50 to 60 channels as part of your basic cable/satellite package, we feel that the Big Ten Network should be part of that lineup. It's hard to imagine finding more than 50 channels more important to a viewer within the Big Ten community than the Big Ten Network.”
Another deal breaker - Big Ten Network wants Comcast to pay $1.10 per customer per month to the network which Comcast says is too high. Negotiations between Big Ten Network and Charter Communications are also still ongoing and while Charter likes the concept of the channel, they are still awaiting the specifics before they can assess whether or not carriage of the network will be in the best interest of their customers. Cable companies assert that they don't think there is enough interest in Big Ten sports, men's and women's in general, to house the network in the less-expensive, more widely viewed basic cable mix.
Insight to Provide Programming to Most of its Customers
Companies such as DirecTV and Insight realized that if they didn’t make a deal with Big Ten Network, they may have a lot of unsatisfied and potentially straying customers. Insight Communications has just announced that it will carry the The Big Ten Network on its Classic service in Columbus, OH and Evansville, IN. as well as its Digital 2.0 subscribers in the state of Kentucky. The Big Ten NEtwork will be available to approximately 640,000 Insight customers.
Negotiations with Comcast and smaller cable companies are still taking place.
