NCAA Basketball Big 10

The long, long, long, long rumored Big Ten Network-Comcast deal is done:

Comcast Corporation and the Big Ten Network announced today that they have reached a long-term multimedia agreement for Comcast to carry Big Ten Network programming across television, broadband and video-on-demand in time for the 2008 college football season.

As to the key issue -- a potential move off expanded basic after an eight-month "trial" -- discussed in last night's post: sports tiers are off the table.

Under the terms of the agreement, Comcast will initially launch the Network as part of its expanded basic level of service... In Spring 2009, Comcast may elect to move the network to a broadly distributed digital level of service in most of its systems in these states.

This isn't quite "expanded basic or death" like the Big Ten wanted but it's not Bennigan's coupons. 80% of the BTN footprint already has digital and that number will only increase going forward. The important thing: no sports tiers in the footprint. Outside the footprint, Comcast can put it wherever it wants, which means sports tier. Overall: a win for the Big Ten, especially if Charter, Mediacom, and Time Warner follow suit.

One final note: we at the Fanhouse would like to bid adieu to Sparky, the jean-shorts-wearing boxing guy who was our mascot during the protracted standoff. You and your preposterously oversized gloves will be missed. Godspeed.

Let's have a parade.

The Fanhouse has told you this at least thrice before, but here it is again: the Big Ten Network and Comcast are about to make a deal. So says everybody. This one's from the Chicago Tribune:

Comcast and the BTN are prepared to put nearly two years of bitter negotiations aside to announce a long-term partnership, the Tribune has learned.

"For all intents and purposes, it's done," one source close to the negotiations said Sunday. Technically, it's not done. But sources expect the deal will be completed and unveiled this week.

(Link via Spartans Weblog.) What's more, the Big Ten Network will provide on demand content including classic games and condensed "snap to snap" replays.

The price? somewhere between 70 and 80 cents, which is some way off the $1.10 that was bandied about as the BTN's asking price during the contentious PR battle waged last summer but also way, way higher than the 25 cents a Comcast vice president told me was the most they'd pay for the network.

Not a good omen for the upcoming year for Ohio State athletics. According to the American Forests, the largest Ohio Buckeye tree resides in Oak Brook, Illinois, not Ohio. If that wasn't bad enough, it is controlled by a clown.

And Ohio lost the title to its state tree -- the Ohio buckeye -- to Illinois, whose new national champ stands at McDonald's corporate headquarters, Hamburger U.

They apparently track and score these things. The Ohio entrant that held the title for 11 years and is actually taller by 4 feet. Girth matters, though, as the McDonald's/Illinois competitor is thicker and wider overall. It outscored the Ohio based tree 266-233.

In the midst of an article about an Indiana University Trustee impotently complaining about the Big Ten Network stalemate, there's an interesting little nugget. Few people at the Big Ten schools actually have seen or read the contract with the Big Ten Network.

Eskew said he's also concerned that a year and a half after the contract between the Big Ten Conference and Fox was announced, not enough people know the details. He said he believes nobody at IU has read it other than Adam Herbert, IU's president in 2006. Eskew wonders if IU could get out of the deal if the cable issue isn't resolved.
...

[Neil] Theobald[, IU's vice president and chief financial officer,] said because IU has already used the money to issue $45 million in bonds for athletic facilities, there won't be any desire to pull out of the contract. School spokesman Larry MacIntyre agreed, saying that would be tantamount to pulling out of the Big Ten.

As for the Big Ten Network contract, Theobald said it's at the conference office in Park Ridge, Ill. He said he hasn't seen it, but that trustees "have access to it if they choose to read it."

In response to a public records request by The Star, MacIntyre said nobody at the school has the contract or a "definitive" description of its contents. But he said current school president Michael McRobbie and athletic director Rick Greenspan have been "intimately briefed on every detail."

And yes, they also checked to see if Purdue had a copy.