Big Ten Reaches Landmark Deals for Television Coverage

Photo courtesy: alamobowl.com

LOS ANGELES - The Big Ten Conference secured two new agreements last week that will redefine future television coverage for their 11 member institutions.

On the same day the league reached a new 10-year rights contract with ABC/ESPN that will allow the networks to broadcast up to 41 football games a year, the conference announced it will partner with Fox Cable Networks to create a Big Ten Channel that plans to showcase conference programming 24 hours a day year-round.

The new channel, scheduled to launch in August 2007, will air a minimum of 35 football games a year, at least two games of each team, in addition to hundreds of other Big Ten athletic events. The channel also gives each school the opportunity to annually produce 60 hours of content to be shown on the new station.

The conference plans to make the new channel available through DIRECTV, satellite and cable television distribution as well as through emerging technology platforms such as iPods, cell phones and the Internet.

Both Fox Cable Networks and the Big Ten entered into a 20-year partnership.

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