Big Ten announces new cable channel, TV contract with ABC/ESPN

The Big Ten Conference created its own cable channel to showcase its athletic teams and reached a new 10-year deal with ABC Sports and ESPN.\nThe Big Ten Channel, created in partnership with Fox Cable Networks, will launch in August 2007, conference commissioner James E. Delany said Wednesday.\n"It will be a destination for all things Big Ten," he said.\nThe Big Ten's 10-year agreement with ABC and ESPN involves football, men's and women's basketball and volleyball.\nABC and ESPN will carry up to 42 Big Ten football games and ESPN's networks will carry about 60 men's basketball games each season, including games on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Games broadcast regionally by ABC will be cablecast by ESPN or ESPN2 to other markets in the country.\nESPN will carry 100 women's basketball and volleyball games over the 10-year period, including the championship games of the Big Ten women's basketball Tournament.\nThe Big Ten Channel, which involves Fox Cable Networks as a minority owner, will be available to satellite and cable distributors nationwide and through the Internet, i-Pods, cell phones and other technologies. DirecTV will offer the channel on its Total Choice package.\n"This agreement, among the most expansive ever, reinforces our position as the No. 1 college sports destination," said George Bodenheimer, president of ABC Sports and ESPN.\nThe new cable channel also will carry soccer, tennis, swimming and diving and wrestling.\nThe channel will allow for 660 hours of non-sports programs produced annually by the 11-member institutions.