[Husker] Big Ten Network an anomaly?

[Mike Jaixen]

I'm not 100% you can call the Big Ten Network completely a success.  In terms of financial results, it's an unquestioned success.  But in terms of penetration and availability, well, not so much.  Exact numbers aren't exactly clear, but as near as I've been able to determine, BTN is only available in about 50% of the cable homes in this country.  ESPN and the like are in something like 90 to 100 million homes in the US.  BTN is somewhere around 45 million in the US.  (I believe some people like to float 30 million Canadian homes into the number to make it a more palatable 75 million homes total.)

And I think that's why Nebraska was so enticing to the Big Ten.  It wasn't the homes in Nebraska, it's the cable providers nationwide who've resisted the call of BTN.

 Mike Jaixen
http://huskermike.blogspot.com
http://www.cornnation.com




________________________________
From: Mike Nolan <nolan at romaine.tssi.com>
To: husker at romaine.tssi.com
Sent: Sat, July 3, 2010 12:50:31 AM
Subject: [Husker] Big Ten Network an anomaly?

Recently I've found that the conference blogs on the ESPN website are
some of the best sources for news and links to stories on other sites.

For example, here's a link I found there to a story on the CBS Sports.com 
site which suggests that the Big Ten Network may be a regional anomaly 
that other conferences, like the Pac 10 and Big XII, might have trouble
duplicating.  

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/13584666/expansion-lessons-part-ii-dividing-the-big-ten-notre-dames-break/rss

There's also an interesting divisional proposal, it puts Michigan and
Michigan State in the west with Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
--
Mike Nolan

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