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Big Ten college sports in TV deals with ABC, Fox

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 16:46 CDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Big Ten Conference on Wednesday announced new partnerships to broadcast its college sports programming on ABC and ESPN, as well as on a new cable channel it plans to launch next year with Fox.

"This is the first effort to launch a national collegiate sports network," Big Ten Commissioner James Delany said, adding the agreements were aimed at giving the conference schools more control over their "brand."

The Big Ten's cable channel to be based in Chicago will launch in August 2007 with partner Fox Cable Networks, which is owned by News Corporation Inc..

DirecTV Group Inc. has signed on as the 24-hour cable channel's first affiliate, and negotiations will get under way with cable distributors in markets across the United States with the aim of reaching subscribers to the lowest-cost cable packages, organizers said in a conference call with reporters.

Terms of the deals were not disclosed, with revenue shared by the Midwestern state universities in the Big Ten conference that includes Ohio State, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois and eight other schools.

The 111-year-old conference expanded to 11 schools in 1990 when Pennsylvania State University joined.

Fox will produce the games and sell advertising, which will exclude purveyors of gambling or alcohol, even though beer ads have often been a staple of college sports programming.

ABC and ESPN, networks owned by Walt Disney Co., will air up to 17 and 25 football games, respectively, and ESPN and its offshoots will air a portion of the men's basketball schedule. CBS Corp. will continue broadcasting a selection of Big Ten men's basketball games on weekends.

Delany said there were 4 million alumni of Big Ten schools spread across the United States, presenting a ready market for the conference's sports on TV, as well as planned online offerings.

In addition, the channel will air college sports like men's hockey, women's volleyball, and Olympic-style sports such as track and field, swimming, wrestling and events such as the Pan-Am Games that feature Big Ten athletes, which will garner interest, he said.

The cable channel will have access to 4,000 archived "classic" Big Ten games, and will air coaches' shows, a likely wrap-up show, and programming opportunities for the schools involved.

Source: REUTERS

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