Big Ten Network Alters Picture of College Sports

Nebraska cheerleaders prior to the game against South Dakota State in Lincoln, Neb., last Saturday.

By JOE DRAPE
NYT

CHICAGO — These are confusing times to be a college football fan. The Big Ten will soon have 12 teams, the Big 12 only 10, and the Pacific-10 is on its way to having 12 teams. It really wishes it had 16.

A land grab is under way in college athletics, a media-savvy, multiplatform one — led by Nebraska’s defection to the Big Ten this summer — and nothing is driving the change more than the Big Ten Network. In three years, it has grown to 42 million subscribers, covering 35 percent of the nation, and has opened powerful revenue sources for the biggest players in college athletics.

Now, conferences like the Pac-10 and the Big East and individual universities like Texas want their own network and are willing to abandon longtime allegiances to get them. Colorado and Utah, for example, will leave the Big 12 and the Mountain West for the Pac-10 next year.

“It has unleashed value for us and given us options and opportunities we never had before,” said Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten and a driving force behind the network. “When President Obama comes to the University of Michigan, we can televise it. When there are flood relief efforts in Iowa, we can be part of that. It has not only extended, but has changed the shape of our brand.”

(More here.)