Big Ten Network looking to woo another team before Aug. 30 launch

CHICAGO – As Big Ten Media Week kicked off Tuesday morning, so did the hard questions concerning Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney, and the standstill known as the Big Ten Network.\nFor the last few weeks, Delaney and BTN have been lambasted due to the public struggles of the network’s relationship with Comcast and Insight. While the network has been unable to gain nationwide coverage, Delaney hinted at adding a 12th team to the Big Ten last week, which has caused some concern among the conference’s coaches.\n“We’re looking for a stronger conference, a conference that works better for all 11 members,” Delaney said. “We would assume that when someone would talk to us about expansion, that they feel it would help them. Our goal, as an institution, is how can we get better.”\nLast week Delaney stated he might look at the possibility of adding another team to the conference with several media outlets reporting that two teams he is interested may be Rutgers University or Syracuse University. In 2005, the Big East nearly became depleted of quality teams with the departures of Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech to the ACC. Should either University move to the Big Ten, they would suffer stiff financial penalties and possibly create a rift between the two conferences.\nAnother concern with a 12-team conference would be the possibility of adding a championship game, with several coaches vehemently and openly against it. While the coaches are mainly against the inclusion of a 13th game, all were open to a bye week and extending the season past Thanksgiving.\n“If you do have 12 teams, if you do have a championship game, it just makes it a little bit tougher,” said Illinois coach Ron Zook. “It’s one more big game that you have to play with the opportunity, if you’re in that game, of getting knocked out of a BCS game or things of that nature.”\nPurdue coach Joe Tiller also said the possibility of winning a division title but losing a conference championship game could result in a “for sale sign in the front lawn.”\nYet during his press conference Tuesday, Delaney publicly denied his ambitions of adding another team to the Big Ten as well as a championship game, though he did not go so far as to say the media misquoted him.\n“We’re not looking for a championship game,” Delaney said. “If we were looking for a championship game, we would have had one 15 years ago.”\nAfter Delaney fielded questions about expansion, BTN President Mark Silverman spoke about the ongoing dilemma his network is facing. With a launch date of Aug. 30, BTN has said it will not settle for a sports tier package on cable networks. Included in the network will be coverage of more than 200 football, men and women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball games over 2007-2008.\nDue to expenses cable networks such as Comcast would pay to accommodate BTN – $1.10 per subscriber – there has been a very public stalemate between the two sides coming to an agreement over the past several weeks. Silverman has been quoted as suggesting viewers to switch from cable to a dish network in order to watch BTN.\nWithout major cable providers, only 20 percent of potential television viewers will be able to watch the network when it first airs, Silverman said. And though neither side has reached an agreement on how to broadcast the network, he said he is confident a deal will eventually be reached by the launch date.\n“This is a typical negotiation and it is played out more publicly than most,” Silverman said. “We’re comfortable with where the negotiations are and we’re willing to negotiate in good faith over the next couple of weeks. I think at this point we’re going to try to be productive in our conversations and if we can have the operators agree to the level of carriage that we think is appropriate, we think we can get this network on the air before kickoff.”