Faux Real

The Big Ten Network debuts tomorrow, piquing the interest of many a Midwestern college sports fan. The Big Ten Network is a subsidiary of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who is decidedly evil and way too rich for his own good, in partnership with the Big Ten universities. The network plans to carry all kinds of sporting events from basketball and football to the vastly under-covered women’s teams and obscure events.

While I’m not a sports fan I’ve been watching the major fight between the Big Ten Network and the large cable companies with great interest. I live on campus in a Big Ten university town and work in a related field, not to mention that the corporate rhetoric and use of media in this fight is really engaging. It’s like watching two media conglomerates in a massive, public catfight, almost as exciting as the time Paris Hilton hit Lindsey Lohan in a fancy LA bar. But I digress.

The biggest problem is that the major cable companies don’t want to carry it — at least not as BTN wants. Aiming for market penetration in addition to quickly turing around the millions of dollars they’ve sunk into midwestern campuses, BTN’s business plan dicatates that the network will be carried in a standard analog cable package, what most people think of when they think of cable. Realizing that this means either eating the cost or raising the customer’s monthly cost by as much as $1.10 a month, the cable companies have resisted. Big companies like Comcast and Time-Warner (as well as the satellite company Dish Network) want to carry the BTN in a specialty sports package, putting the cost for digital services and specialty sports programming on diehard fans as opposed to millions of customers that may not be interested or don’t live in the midwest.

BTN has responded by penetrating local media with advertisements encouraging fans to switch to one of its carriers, Direct TV, which is not coincidentally also owned by Rupert Murdoch.

In this case I sympathize with the major cable companies, which is truly uncharacteristic of my beliefs, in that I and many others with low incomes and limited funds are tired of being nickled and dimed to death with rates that seem arbitrary to most but can be crucial to some. And although cable isn’t a true utility, it’s considered a utility to people of low-income, the elderly, and the infirm, people who need to fit entertainment into a tight budget, and people who rely on static rates to keep tight budgets within reason. I figure while most people really don’t care about Podunk U’s lacrosse team and don’t want to spend the additional cash, the diehard fans will find a way to pay for the additional programming, and BTN will have to settle for a business plan that doesn’t turn around its expenses quite as much as they’d like.

On the other hand, this is also an opportunity for lesser-known and lesser-lauded athletes to get major coverage and money for their efforts — and a huge portion of the reported events that will be covered by the BTN are women’s sports, a huge chunk of the athletic populace that has historically been ignored and ridiculed. What better way to get them extra attention and encourage more young women into college sports? Unfortunately the BTN isn’t capitalizing on these kinds of athletic underdogs, instead positing itself as a victim of unfair contracts and legal obligations, leaving out the fact that it’s fourth in line to pick games to carry after ESPN, ESPN2, and network TV. Have a kid on the college swim team? You want the Big Ten Network. Want to catch your favorite team’s basketball game? It’s probably on ESPN.

[Further compounding the situation is the typical consumer argument that cable companies should be offering channel by channel plans, a technology that isn't possible until all services are offered digitally instead of analog. Editorial opinion pieces in newpapers across the region lament that companies aren't providing services that don't exist yet, and customers agree. Someday, someday, but until then content has to be affordable.]

At the time this piece is written, Comcast has ended negotiations with BTN and Time-Warner and Dish Network haven’t been able to reach a distribution agreement. Meanwhile, BTN is flooding the market with a lot of noise implying that the cable companies are being greedy and that Big Cable will lose subscribers to its sister company Direct TV. Never mind that the cable companies have already offered to carry the network in a specialized format.

I don’t have any dog in this fight other than resisting another rise in my monthly cable bill, but I’m sure others have opinions. Any sports fans in the audience?