Worst. Story. Ever.

In my tireless quest for Penn State related information, I found what sounded like an encouraging story I could pass along. The headline:

Time Warner Ramping Up Negotiations With Big Ten Network

Never mind that I don't have Time Warner, or really care about the Big Ten Network fight anymore (it's an excuse to get to the bar at 11:30 am), but I suppose the more cable companies that carry the BTN the better.

Well the first let down was finding out it's from a local NBC station in Columbus, Ohio.

It may be spring, but in central Ohio, it's always Buckeye football season. And with the Buckeyes now ranked number one in an ESPN poll, is Time Warner closer to striking a deal with the Big Ten Network so you can see all the games this season?

You know, just because "it's always Buckeye football season" doesn't mean that you can be ranked. In fact, every poll I've seen has Ohio State no higher than 4th.

Of course, they are probably talking about preseason polls. Never mind that those aren't due out for another four months or so, or that ESPN doesn't sponsor any pre-season polls, or that last years pre-season Top 5 included Michigan...never mind things that make sense...this is going to be the best football season eva11!1!

Fans are gearing up for what they expect to be one of the most exciting OSU football seasons ever. “I'm hoping national championship this year,” says Buckeyes fan, Erik Gossnikle.

Did you hear that, guys? A fan in Columbus is 'hoping' for a national championship! This is some groundbreaking shit! Oh, right, the cable deal:

But with anticipation of another year of Ohio State football, comes anxiety for some fans that if their [sic*] not at Ohio Stadium to watch the game, they could miss it. Last year, Time Warner customers missed four games due to disagreements between the cable giant and cable rookie, Big Ten Network.

“It was very frustrating,” says OSU fan, Daniel Lundy.

Here man, the end of you frustration. They are called sports bars, and there are lots of them.

Ok, let's get back on track here: give me the breaking news that warrants the language "Ramping Up Negotiations":

Judy Barbao with Time Warner says next week, after taking several months off, officials will sit down with Fox, the company that owns the Big Ten Network to ramp up negotiations. “I would say we are optimistic we will have productive talks and we are hopefully we will reach an agreement with big ten network before football season,” Barbao says.

I think I speak for all of us when I say: thanks for nothing. Based on that quote it doesn't even sound like they are in negotiations right now, so to say that they are ramping up is a bit misleading. Oh, and Fox doesn't own the BTN.

But before we finish with this non-story rittled with bad journalism, let's check back in with your National Championship hopeful Erik Gossnikle:

“I'd love to be able to watch it from home,” says Grossnikle. And in the end, that’s all fans like him care about.

Well at least they nailed the ending.


* I understand that me calling out other's grammar mistakes is a bit of a joke considering there is probably one in this footnote, but I don't get paid to do this and I never claimed to be good at it anyway.

BTN: Coming Soon To A Television Near You?

Depends on where you live. And what you define as 'soon'.

Sounds like a good start, however:

A signed deal could still be weeks, or even months, away, as lawyers from both sides hammer out the specifics. Snags still could develop, but sources are optimistic that a deal will get done....Comcast agreed to launch the conference network on expanded basic through most of the Big Ten Conference’s eight-state region, as much as 94 percent of it, according to one source.

The biggest problem here, for me anyway, is that there is no discussion of access to the Big Ten Network outside of the "Big Ten Footprint". I do not live in the footprint. Too bad, I guess. Horrey $5 Miller Lites downtown.

Also, for those of you who are not under the tyrannical rule of the shit-tastic, deceitful, commie loving, non-customer centered provider Comcast, no unsubstantiated rumors have been leaked:

While Comcast appears closer than ever to a deal with BTN, sources say Time Warner Cable, BTN’s other big cable holdout, is not close to a deal with the channel.

Putting Fans First the Web Site!!! No Spin, At All, We Swear!!1!!1!

I stumbled across puttingfansfirst.org, a website dedicated to fans who paint up, wear cargo shorts and love to jump around in flip flops*. Sounds like your typical fan, right? I know, I couldn't wait to join either. I mean, who doesn't want to put fans first, you know? I sure do. Fans should be first.

But like so many of it's 'org' predecessors, there seems to me something a little misleading about the title 'for the people'. I'm going FJM on this mother (web site quotes in bold):

Putting Fans First is a new coalition of sports superfans and consumers uniting to address the soaring cost of sports programming.

Superfans? I haven't heard that term since high school...which explains why the three guys on the front page of PFF (can I call it that?) are wearing cargo shorts and flip flops. As for consumers, aren't we all consumers, really? You know, capitalism and that whole thing?

Right off the bat I'd like to know exactly who registered and funded this whole operation for "superfans and consumers". A website for everyone isn't for anyone except the people who created it, so lets find out who that is.

Search at godady.com told me the domain was registered by "Domain by Proxy". Guess what they do? Assure that (per the web site) "you identity is nobody's business but ours." By "ours" they mean not mine.

That's not suspicious at all, registering a dot org through a lock and key identity protection service. Mean's you probably don't have any hidden agenda or anything.

The new Big Ten Network (BTN) is Exhibit A. Having sold its best games to ABC and ESPN, the Big Ten now wants to charge all of us – fans and consumers alike – hundreds of millions of dollars a year for games that are either “fifth tier,” according to sports columnists....

So we get to the meat of the argument, that fans are going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for "fifth tier" games. What the fuck is "fifth tier"? Let's google it. Quoted below is the only relevant hit I was able to find; it involves an interview between TV Week and the president of Fox Cable Sports Networks, Bob Thompson:

TVWeek: There are obviously two sides to every argument, but from your point of view, what’s wrong with this sentence: “Sports fans will have to pay $1.10 per person to watch fifth-tier football games and women’s volleyball.”
Mr. Thompson: Well, the $1.10 has been probably the most oft-quoted figure, which is just not true....It’s like the analogy that nobody pays sticker price on a car unless you’re an idiot.
The part of the fifth-tier game, I don’t understand that. I mean I think we never pick fifth, there’s no scenario where we pick fifth. There’s scenarios where we pick second, third, and you know we’ve made the decision to not only pick in those days second or third, but we also take all the rest of the games because these games—there’s no such thing as a fifth-tier game if it’s your school and your team.

Ok PFF, so by "sports columnists" (note: plural) you mean one writer at TVWeek. By "calling it fifth-tier" you mean above mentioned TVWeek writer (note: not sports) exaggerated something he thought Comcast those at PFF would say to let Thompson answer critics. Good work fellas.

[programming] that we used to be able to see for free. In fact, BTN would be the second most expensive national network!

This is where you guys blew it. If you wouldn't have misquoted a TV programming columnist, I would have never found the interview where Thompson calls bullshit on your very claim:

TVWeek: Reports had you demanding $1.10 in the Big Ten states and a dime through the rest of the country. Would that really make it one of the most expensive national channels?
Mr. Thompson: I can tell you this much, it’s significantly less than ESPN. It’s significantly less than a lot of regional sports networks. Especially if you amortize the cost over the entire U.S....All these guys used to carry these exact same games on pay-per-view around the country. These games were all a part of ESPN’s plan. People were paying 20 bucks a pop for them.

So by "used to get for free" you mean used to have to pay $20 a game on pay-per-view for. I actually remember games on ESPN+ being pay-per-view regionally so this is not bullshit.

As for the "second most expensive national network", I don't feel like going into it but lets just say, based on reading the interview above and other sources, that simply isn't true.

Leading cable companies reportedly want to carry the network in a way that lets sports fans pay for it without imposing the costs on all consumers.

Again, if you are going to lie you have to be consistent. You told me this site was for both superfans and consumers, now you are saying us "sports fans" can pay for it without imposing the costs on all consumers. Well, and I'm no Greenspan, but isn't imposing the cost on all consumers good for me? If I eat more mozzarella sticks than anyone else at the table, but we split the price of the mozzarella sticks evenly onto everyone's bill, how is that not good for me, the "Super-Mozzarella-Sticks-Fan"?

Whether you're a superfan or a budget-conscious consumer, this is a bad idea. And it may be only the beginning ... so we're united to tell BTN and others to give us the games and not the hustle.

While your "give us the games and not the hustle" thing is cute, until someone tells me what is wrong with my mozzarella stick analogy I'm going to stick to calling you bullshit.


* Update: Between the time I started this bit and the time I published it, PFF has decided to replace their signature picture, one of three guys painted up and jumping around in flip-flops, with a tamer but equally stupid picture of a kid holding a basketball and sporting yellow shoelaces. I assure you the original photo was much more fun, but you'll have to take my word for it.

Post Season Thoughts Regarding The BTN

Wronge "BTN"

Ah, the Big Ten Network. No one really loves it, some people fucking hate it, but now that a whole season has passed I figured I'd look back and actually figure out how it changed the way I do things.

When I first heard about the BTN, I was drunk at a tailgate. I didn't know what was up but there was something funny about college kids walking around, not to sell things, but to hand me a flyer that simply told me how great this new, conference run network was going to be.

Well the summer came and we all learned the details. The network was for real, they had cameras and everything. And what was worse, they were going to take games from us. Crappy games, yes, but games none the less. People were pissed. I was one of those people.

Well then the season started. Several of us addicts go to the bar to watch college football on Saturday's anyway, and the first weekend was as good an excuse as any to pay way too much for crappy beer we could drink (shotgun, even!) at home for a fraction of the price.

So if the game was on ESPN/ABC, we found a couch to watch it. If it was on the BTN, we found a bar to watch it. The TV coverage on the Network wasn't bad, and the announcers weren't great, but they didn't win any Pammy Awards either.

This is an ESPN Zone, I spent a lot of money at one of these places to see a game that ended with a final score of 59-0

The only game I can honestly say sucked was the Indiana game. The one where Justin King got smoked all day. It was a Noon kickoff and no one wanted to get there on time, the game didn't have any appeal and the season had lost all its luster just a couple weeks before. It did end up being a decent game, though.

I don't live in the Commonwealth and so Penn State basketball might as well not exist as far as national TV coverage is concerned. From what I hear, they get on the Network from time to time. So in that sense I guess it's a good thing.

Now don't get me wrong, the BTN is run by greedy bastards, who are trying to convince a bunch of greedy douchbags to pay $1.10 a subscriber for a lot of shitty to mediocre sporting events. Situations like this are always bullshit. With this much money involved, someone was going to get screwed.

In hindsight, though, maybe I over-reacted a little bit. I didn't really lose much. Being at the bar made the Buffalo game a lot more fun. There wasn't going to be any PSU basketball on anyway.

There is a little noise on the contract front, so I'll try to pull some of that up next week. But for now, I'm going to have to find something else to get riled up about.