Comcast gives its side of the BTN negotiations
The Big Ten Network and Comcast seem to be at an impasse in their negotiations to get the new network in fans’ living rooms. Just yesterday Michigan State University president Lou Anna K. Simon emailed MSU fans to explain the conference’s point of view and urged fans to call 1-866-WANT-B10 if their cable or satellite company doesn’t already carry the new channel.
Now it’s Comcast’s turn to get their side of the story out. Comcast Midwest Division President Bill Connors spoke with Indiana basketball fan site Peegs.com for a Q&A session to explain the cable network’s position.
Q - Do you think they are trying to leverage some of the loyalty you see with college alums and fans?
I think there is no question that is their most effective marketing opportunity. That is to plug into the emotional fabric that makes up a passionate alum that has an interest in their school’s sport. That doesn’t surprise anybody and the same can be said about a general interest cable channel. Let’s say a women’s centric cable channel–they obviously try to plug into that demographic. If it is an ethnic cable channel launch they try to plug into the emotional fabric of a particular ethnic group that the programming is aligned with.
In the case of the Big Ten what they are trying to do is create an illusion that this is good for the alumni, good for the fan base and that it is somehow better than what the scenario was before. What we are trying to do and we didn’t think we would be in such a public situation with them, but what we are trying to do is cut through the clutter and spew facts that at the end of the day this is probably not a good thing for alumni and fan base of these institutions based on the way games used to be distributed. They have lately tried to portray this to people that this is the end all, be all for Big Ten sports in coverage. We thought we were going to have to combat that but as you have probably fairly recently seen, ESPN came out with a rather public letter kind of chastising the Big Ten by making sure that no Big Ten fan has any belief that the real meat and potatoes coverage of the most watched Big Ten sports are still going to be available through existing distribution media and not on the Big Ten Network.
As you can guess Mike, this is a whole different level of conversation and a whole different level of stakes if the Big Ten had taken a different programming angle and not renewed all of their programming agreements with ABC, ESPN and all their other distribution deals. If they would not have renewed those for another 10, 12 or 15 years and would have made the decision to take all Big Ten content and exclusively have it on the Big Ten Network, then this is a whole different level of conversation. Because then that clearly is a size and scope channel, reach wise and interest wise, that is a whole different thing than they are trying to portray right now.