Big Ten Football on Fox!

A while ago I predicted/blogged what will be the future of the NFL on TV….now my take on the best conference in college sports, the BIG TEN.  I’m looking this purely at football only.  Basketball is a different monster.

Currenlty the Big Ten has contracts with ESPN/ABC and the Big Ten Network, and most recenlty FOX to broadcast the Big Ten Championship game.  The ABC/ESPN deal goes through 2015 season.  Fox gets the Big Ten Title game through 2016.  As for buyouts with either I don’t know what they are, but I think there’s a better chance of a clause with ABC/ESPN than Fox.  Fox owns DirecTV and also has a stake in the Big Ten Network.

So I think it is interesting that when the Big Ten negotiated the Big Ten Title game, why didn’t it go to ESPN/ABC?  Could it be because the Big Ten-Fox marriage with the Big Ten Network?  Fox had the dipped into the college football world with the BCS for four years, but nothing during the regular season.  When the next Big Ten contract talks come up, I think you see Fox be a big player and add in college football to their slate and the Big Ten will move football from ABC/ESPN to Fox, and then of course the Big Ten Network. 

To do this though I think Fox needs to make a bigger commitment and investment into College football.  You can’t just dip your toes into it with Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson, and please NO Chris Rose or Chris Myers.  You need to grab some decent and really good anaylsts and show hosts, and I think they can and will do that. 

But also with that I’m excited, especially during conference play, of what it would mean for the Big Ten and getting all their games on nationally, instead of regionally.  With Fox and the Big Ten Network, you have 6 great time slots.  11 am, 3pm and prime time at 7pm.  ABC and ESPN can vouch for this, college football is ratings gold.  What are you going to throw on Saturday night on Fox in the fall?  Football is gold!  Now the Big Ten has a rule that no games played at night after the first week of November, that needs changed, move it to maybe the first 2 weeks in November. 

Looking at a typical Big Ten confernce week coming up, you’ll have 5 or 6 games a week.  Here are a couple examples of what your national broadcasts would look like. 

TIME	Big Ten Network	FOX
11AM	Illinois @ Indiana	Michigan @ Northwestern
3PM	Minnesota @ Purdue	Penn State @ Iowa
7PM		Ohio State @ Nebraska
	Bye - MSU/WISC
TIME	Big Ten Network	FOX
11AM	Northwestern @ Indiana	Iowa @ Minnesota
3PM	Purdue @ Michigan	Michigan State @ Nebraska
7PM	Illinois @ Penn State	Wisconsin @ Ohio State
Thanksgiving Weekend
TIME	Big Ten Network	FOX
3PM - FRI		Iowa @ Nebraska
11AM	Illinois @ Minnesota	Mich State @ Northwestern
3PM	Purdue @ Indiana	Penn State @ Wisconsin
7PM		Ohio State @ Michigan

Now obvioulsy as teams play all is subject to change, but you get all the games available nationally, not regionally at 230 and 11am on ESPN or Big Ten Network.  This allows you all your conference games to be on tv.  Now when it comes to non-conference games, that would have to be worked around regionally with 12 different broadcasts, but you’d still get a chance for two primetime and two 3pm games.  No more sharing with SEC and ACC or Big East, the BIG TEN is bigger and better and more available.

Obviously also that the college basketball contract would have to be worked out some.  I don’t know if I can see FOX jump in on the college basketball front, but CBS has weekend games for the Big Ten, and ESPN would still have the games on Tuesday and Thursday, but you’d have to have all for the Big Ten Network pumping the basketball games. 

CBS is all in love with the SEC but shares them with ABC/ESPN.  But when you turn on CBS at 3pm in the fall, it’s their channel.  This is what it could be like for the Big Ten with the Big Ten on Fox! 

NCAA Tournament Thoughts

I didn’t know how the whole four network thing was going to work when they first announced it but after 1 night, it’s a success in my opinion.  I really like that I have all 4 channels in HD on Mediacom.  Love how CBS has the logos of the stations each game are on at the top of the screen.  Made it easier to navigate to all the games. 

I wonder how ESPN/Disney would have accommodated this?  ESPN & ESPN2 are really the only accessible HD channels they have that are freely available.  Would they have made ESPNU and Classic more readily available or put a marquee game on ABC?  ESPN needs to step up their college studio experience I think to get the big dance, or really open their wallet.  CBS does it right, right now. 

I still think that somehow, someway, some day that ESPN is big enough and has enough clout that you will see more major sports and sporting events being broadcast on ESPN.  How much does CBS and Turner really lose in showcasing the games for what they pay?  Sure they get to promote their other shows, but other than that, you got to think they lose more than they gain, money wise.

One negative, to me, is the infusion of NBA talent from Turner to the NCAA.  I don’t need Charles Barkley, Marv Albert or Craig Sager (and his suits) for a quick dip into pool and then back after a week or so run.  Give me Jay Bilas and Seth Davis.  Jay Bilas by the way had a great read posted yesterday you can read here.

The biggest negative is the First Four…really do we need them?  In a word, NO.  It’s confusing to us as fans and to the non-fans who just want to do the brackets.  Go back to 64 or expand it all to 96 and dump the NIT.

My other big negative on the NCAA is the locations.  Look at the empty seats in the arenas.  Hello NCAA!  Go to some new sites!  Des Moines would SELL OUT!  Quit going to these same towns over and over.  Does St. Petersburg or Greensboro need a regional every other year.  Rotate these things more and incorporate new cities and venues.  And for the Final Four do we always have to be in a football stadium?  Go to these great arenas in the nation.  Madison Square Garden is getting a million dollar make over, get the Final Four there.  Put a Final Four in Chicago’s United Center instead of a regional.  Not to mention these great cities with actual basketball arenas, but for a player, shooting with a football stadium backdrop is a hell of a lot different than shooting in a basketball arena. 

The games the first day were amazing.  For all the flack that the selection committee has got (and seems to always get every year) day 1 was really entertaining.  Hopefully Day 2 and the rest of the days keep it up.

I mostly have chalk today, minus the 8/9 or 7/10 games which I don’t consider upsets, to evenly matched, other than Oakland over Texas.  (Texas up 10+ as I write this).  My son and wife are on top of the Wide Right pool after day 1 too, so good for them.  My bracket I went 10-6 yesterday, I hope I can at least match that today.  So enjoy the games, enjoy the weekend!

Celebrity Apprentice 4 prediction

Ok, so I should have done this before but I wanted to get a feeling of how the players acted in show 1.  This seasons cast is interesting.  I think you have a bunch of egos that are going to conflict with each other, which makes for good tv. 

I think of the guys Cassidy was the weakest link and he had to go.  I don’t think Jose will bring in the $ since he’s burned his baseball bridges to win and like Hatch said, I don’t think he’s bright enough to win.  Of the guys I think John Rich (Big & Rich) has the best chance to succeed and lead.  Of the women I think it will come down to Lisa Rinna and Star Jones, Nikki Taylor maybe a dark horse candidate.  It looks like the women don’t like Lisa Rinna, but she reminds me of the Rivers combo a couple years ago.  I think she has too much to fail.  Really don’t think there is a Pierse Morgan, Joan Rivers or Bret Michaels in this group yet. 

I’ll pick John Rich to win it all.

MAN VS FOOD!

Ok, so I haven’t posted a blog or many about this topic, but I LOVE FOOD.  Love the different tastes and flavors.  Everything.  And I love the shows on Food Network and Travel like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Man vs Food, what sucks is I usually watch them late at night and about 11pm I get really hungry.  Well tonight, on Travel Channel’s Man vs Food, Adam Richman is in DES MOINES!  He takes on the Adam Emenecker Challenge at Jethro’s BBQ, stops by Black Market Pizza and one of my favorite places, the High Life Lounge!  If you’re not watching anything, check it out, Travel Channel, 8pm (CST)

To View a slide show of pictures from the Des Moines Trip, check out the following link.

Who’s in your 5? TV Shows

So I can either go with current, past, or combined. And I think I will go with the later. Right now there are a few shows that I consider shows I follow and watch, and I think a few will fall into my top 5. So here we go.



5. Big Bang Theory – Nerds! How can you not laugh with Sheldon being Sheldon. And to bring in HALO night to a tv show is awesome!

4. Big Brother – It’s not the most popular reality show out there, but it is my favorite of them. I don’t think there is a better reality player (maybe boston rob on survivor) than Dr. Will. He was great in season 2 and in all-stars. The interactions with Mike Boogie in both seasons was great.

3. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – sure it was about promoting Will Smith, but if you watch it and follow it, its about 1 thing too. Family. The Dukes of Hazzard was one of the last pure good family shows, but with what was shown on Fresh Prince if look deeper is a family bond and what it should be.



2. How I Met Your Mother – it’s Legen…wait for it, wait for it…DARY! I love all 5 characters. It’s perfect, it’s the new Friends. I don’t know if it will ever top Friends popularity, but for me its a lot better! And if you don’t think so, I challenge you to a slap bet!

1. Dukes of Hazzard – I love that car! Learned how to drive watching it! Remember Friday’s watching it at Grandma’s house in here little cubby hole area. We’d sit and watch, and then when the re-runs came back on, we’d watch those too. One day my goal is to own a 1969 Dodge Charger painted up in orange with an “01” on the side.

Future of the NFL on TV?

This year you saw the end of the BCS Bowl games on broadcast television. In 2010 the Sugar, Fiesta, Orange and BCS Title Game will be moving to ESPN. The Rose Bowl, on ABC - ESPN's parent network, negotiates their own contract. ESPN is the "Home of College Football" and broadcasts hundreds of college games on the family of networks. With what ESPN can do and who they have, one can think that ESPN will hold on to this contract longer than FOX. Maybe even with ESPN & Barack Obama's help, there would be a playoff.

Then you have the NCAA talking about putting the tournament from broadcast to cable Who would be there? ESPN. The mother ship broadcasts championship week on the family of networks already, ESPN has the power to do it. And instead of only broadcasting one game to homes, with ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN Classic, four pod sites could all be broadcast on the air.

Now to the NFL. Right now games are broadcast on NBC, CBS, FOX, NFL and ESPN. The NFL is America's game. We can't get enough football! Check out the ratings. ESPN and NBC have the premiere contracts (Sunday & Monday Night) but ESPN can't get a Super Bowl broadcast.

The NFL Network was born and has the late season Thursday Night and Sunday Night Broadcasts, and with it being their network, and no chance of a Super Bowl Broadcast, wouldn't you think that somewhere down the line it is coming?

The one issue with the NFL Network is it's not on all cable providers and its in a lot less homes, but this maybe a calling card to get the network on all cable providers.

So when the next contract comes up, what will happen? Will companies losing money on broadcast television want to anti up even more money in the economy? NBC was just sold to Comcast, and also has a big Notre Dame contract to mess with. Other sports are creating their own channels (Golf, Speed, BIG TEN Network), and succeeding also.

I think you will see ESPN get more than just Monday Night. I think they will take both the NFC and AFC contracts. They have the best morning show with Berman, Ditka, TJ and the receivers. They have the 2 networks (ESPN/ESPN2) to broadcast AFC and NFC games. They can rope in Classic also to broadcast games. I think you'd see broadcast teams from the 2 networks move to ESPN too and build a great relationship with the NFL.

I think you will see Comcast keep NBC in the fray and continue with NBC Sunday Night Football. Michaels and Collinsworth and that broadcast team are great!

Finally the NFL Network will keep the late season Thursday games and Saturday Night games, but will also have something written into their contract to get more games later in the contract and then also a Super Bowl.

ESPN is the world wide leader in sports, they have the BCS, they will get the NCAA tourney and they will get more NFL.

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