BTN Ready For ’08 Season

It’s August and for football players that means the grind of two-a-day workouts.

For those trying to secure Big Ten Network carriage deals with Time Warner Cable, Mediacom and Charter Communications, it hasn’t gotten to that point — yet.

“No, we haven’t gotten to that stage yet,” joked Michael Hopkins, president of affiliate sales and marketing for Fox Cable Networks, during an interview in late July, noting “there’s still a month or so to go” before BTN kicks off its first 2008 football games on Aug. 30. “We’re negotiating with all of them and remain optimistic there are going to be deals.”

Hopkins and officials at BTN — the service is owned by the conference’s 11 member colleges and Fox National Cable Sports Networks — are buoyed by a recent deal with Comcast that will see the nation’s largest MSO initially launch the network as part of its expanded basic tier in seven of the eight states in the Big Ten Conference: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Comcast does not have subscribers in the eighth Big Ten State, Iowa. In the Philadelphia market, the operator will launch the service on a broadly distributed digital tier.

“It’s a very exciting time for us as we come up on our second season,” said BTN president Mark Silverman. “It’s a great opportunity for the network as we launch on Comcast systems on Aug. 15.”

With the Comcast pact, BTN, which also recently inked a deal with Verizon Communications and has carriage contracts with Dish Network, DirecTV, Insight Communications and overbuilders RCN and WideOpenWest, will lift its subscriber base from around 30 million to more than 35 million homes.

If BTN strikes deals with Time Warner, Charter (which has a significant presence in Wisconsin and Minnesota) and Mediacom (the predominant MSO in Iowa with more than a half-million customers), it could add another 6.5 million to 7 million subscribers within the Big Ten’s eight-state footprint.

But the three distributors remained on the sideline over pricing (BTN was originally asking for a $1 per subscriber within the eight-state region) and positioning issues.

Although neither side would reveal financial terms, sources familiar with the deal said Comcast will pay BTN about 70 cents per subscriber per month. In spring 2009, Comcast may elect to move the network to a broadly distributed digital tier in most of those systems.

“We’ve certainly made some changes in the way we look at outer markets; we’ve become more flexible,” said Hopkins. “If Comcast is not the No. 1 operator in terms of digital penetration, they have the most digital customers overall. The network is available to the vast majority of them.”

Silverman noted that the main reason for the lengthy negotiations with Comcast was hammering out the video-on-demand, high-definition and new-media portions of the deal. In fact, BTN is producing an HD VOD highlights package for Comcast under the pact.

“It’s important that we can offer distributors advanced services that can help grow their other platforms,” said Silverman. “That’s an advantage for the network.”

Whether that will trigger three more distribution deals remains to be seen.

“We’d like to carry the Big 10 Network in a manner beneficial to all of our customers,” said Charter spokesman Marty Richman. “We are in negotiations are hopeful they will result in a positive outcome for our customers.”

Time Warner Cable and Mediacom officials confirmed that they were negotiating with BTN. But neither party would characterize whether the contractual disconnects centered on pricing, advanced services or both.

For those who do receive the network, there will be plenty of gridiron action this month, before BTN begins its 40-plus game slate with the Aug. 30 season openers for Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin. There will be 30-minute previews on each school, plus lead studio host Dave Revsine and analysts Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith will take viewers to each campus for special 90-minute editions of Big Ten Tonight: Football Practice. Those shows will be marathoned as the season draws nigh, according to Silverman.

“We want to provide fans with as much information about their schools as possible,” he said.

BTN has also made advertising strides. “There has been a tremendous response to our football this year. We’ve doubled our year-to-year ad revenue,” said BTN vice president of ad sales Roy Seinfeld. “There are a number of returning sponsors; I’d like to think that means we’re doing something right.”

To that end, Buffalo Wild Wings returns as football halftime sponsor, as does Suzuki ATV for the pregame reports. Auto parts chain Advance Auto, which will again have a major schedule for football, is back as the halftime sponsor for hoops.

Nissan, a Big Ten corporate sponsor, will again serve as the presenting sponsor for the Friday Night Tailgate show, which starts Aug. 29. Seinfeld has had conversations with the automaker about having segments depicting show host Mike Hall, driving to the campus of a week. Seinfeld said Nissan has not yet made the call about what model it wants to feature.

BTN has also signed ConAgra Foods’ Rotel brand to sponsor its game day set. The deal, encompassing TV and Internet inventory and campus sampling, will also feature product placement in the form of its queso dip product on the set.

Seinfeld said that by holding all the rights, BTN offers “an attractive, cost-effective means to reach these audiences.”

He said that none of the ad deals are “based on contingencies” of wider distribution. But clearly that’s the priority in the weeks ahead.

“Negotiations have picked up since the Comcast and Verizon deals,” said an MSO official. “The Comcast deal, even though it has some quirkiness like carving out Philadelphia as a non BTN area, gives us some gauge to the market. It puts us in a better position to negotiate.”

Sports analyst John Mansell believes contract game plans will be drawn eventually. “[BTN] is one of the more high-profile conferences in college sports,” he said. “It has become more flexible on the terms, and it’s providing VOD highlights and other content. Eventually, the sides will come around.”

The question is whether they will come to terms without two-a-days.