Big Ten Network not such a big man on cable campus

As the proud graduate of a Midwestern land-grant institution, I know this is going to strike many as blasphemy, but I couldn't care less if the Big Ten Network runs on Comcast Cable in the Chicago area - and not just because I'm a DirecTV subscriber.

The tussle between Comcast and the BTN is about power and control and public-relations posturing, but most of all it's about two corporate behemoths arguing over who gets to stick their hands deeper into the customer's pockets.

The BTN got up and running Thursday with what it described as "the inaugural telecast of ȢȢ‚ˆ¬Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“Big Ten Tonight,' the network's signature studio-based news, information and highlights show, chronicling the athletes, events and other activities from around the Big Ten's 11 Midwest campuses."

Sorry, but I already had plans to watch the Buster Keaton film festival on Turner Classic Movies.

The basic conflict comes down to this: BTN wants to run as part of basic cable, at least on digital packages, but it also would like to charge each subscriber $1.10 a month.

Comcast says fine, you can have your pound of flesh, but only if you run on a sports tier at an extra charge with other like-minded, self-obsessed entities like the NFL Network and NBA TV.

BTN says no go, because it is well aware that only a small number of dweebs, geeks, pinheads, frat boys, fantasy-football aficionados and other social misfits are actually willing to pay money for such a package.

Although the BTN and Fox Cable Networks, the corporate heavy backing it up, insist they're more than willing to negotiate, I read that as meaning they'd maybe go as low as a buck a month a head.

Hey, it's not as if they arrived at the $1.10 figure so a dime could go to each Big Ten school, although the conference would no doubt like people to think so. (Our motto: "The Big Ten, counting is for the Ivy League.") Forty-nine percent of whatever profits there are eventually will go straight to Rupert Murdoch. So what we have here is a corporate standoff.

And if that means some Comcast, Dish Network and WOW subscribers are going to have to do without the noble student-athletes of Appalachian State being sacrificed on a spit for the pleasure of the so-called Michigan men and their fans in the old "maize and blue," well, sorry, but those viewers are just going to have to find their bloodsport elsewhere at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Take it from me, I won't be watching - and not because I'll be tuning instead to the titanic tilt for the northern tip of the compass between Northeastern and Northwestern on DirecTV's BTN "spillover" Channel 219.

No, I've got a wife, kids, a lawn that needs cutting, a Trader Joe's buffalo burger just calling out to be placed on a hot grill - you know, what most human beings refer to as "a life."

And, truth be told, it won't be any different next Saturday night when my own alma mater, Illinois, puts its reputation and Ron Zook's recruiting magic on the line against Western Illinois.

What is the BTN anyway? It's a bully conference's attempt to bind its lesser games together to give them more value than they'd otherwise have. Look, it's not as if we're talking about Ohio State-Michigan here - at least not yet. The big games have always aired on the big broadcast networks, because that's where the big bucks and the biggest audiences are. 'Twas ever so, and until the BTN far outgrows its meager sports-tier beginnings, 'twill ever be the case.

(Although that's the potential danger posed by self-owned sporting entities like the NFL Network, NBA TV and even local stations like Comcast SportsNet Chicago and the Yankees' YES network, that they might eventually remove the corporate middleman from the equation and take their money straight from fans forced to subscribe or lose out, but that's a doomsday column for another day and probably another decade.)

Me, I was quite content watching many of my Illinois basketball games broadcast (for free, I might add) on WCIU Channel 26 courtesy of ESPN Plus, and if watching them in the future means I have to pay also for the privilege to see Iowa take on Grinnell - in women's field hockey, and you just know the BTN isn't going to be wall-to-wall marquee events - I'm not sure I need to go along for the ride.

The Big Ten has put out a self-important statement saying, "The Big Ten universities and their teams are so much a part of their states it warrants the widespread distribution of the Big Ten Network on basic cable within the eight-state footprint of the Big Ten."

You don't need to be directly downwind of the South Farms in Champaign-Urbana to know that's hogwash.

Look, BTN, you're playing in a big, tough, competitive cable-satellite universe now, so you better be ready to compete. And it's gonna take more than Appalachian State-Michigan to make even nimrod Big Ten alumni insist, "I want my BTN."

Ted Cox (tcox@dailyherald.com) writes Tuesday and Thursday in L&E, Friday in Sports and Friday in Time out!