Can the Big Ten get any bigger? Oh, yes. The 110-year-old conference recently announced that it is partnering with Fox Cable Networks to create the Big Ten Network, a national cable channel dedicated entirely to Big Ten activities. The network, which launches next August, will operate 24/7/365, in case you awaken at 3 a.m. craving some Wildcat, Illini, Badger or Hoosier gridiron or hoops action.
The Big Ten Network says it will carry 35-plus Big Ten football games a year, at least 105 men’s basketball games, 55 or more women’s basketball games, Big Ten tournaments, 170 Olympic sporting events and historic footage of past bowl games.
But athletics will pale before the channel’s coverage of intellectual life on the 11 campuses. Just kidding. But each school “will have the right to provide 60 hours of its own content annually,” says Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany. “We anticipate this will create enormous opportunities … to highlight academic achievement throughout the universities.”
Since the conference just inked a 10-year agreement with ABC/ESPN to air up to 41 more Big Ten football games per year, as well as 60 men’s basketball games and 100 women’s basketball and volleyball events, it’s unlikely anyone anywhere will ever again have to miss even a nanosecond of, say, the Buckeyes or the Nittany Lions. And the first thing the Big Ten Network can do is tell us what a Buckeye or a Nittany Lion is.
