Football Saturdays

As September 1 gets closer, the issue of whether or not we’ll be able to follow many of Michigan State’s sporting events on television in the coming year looms overhead.

At the heart of the matter is the newly formed Big Ten Network, which will be exclusively airing sporting events for Big Ten schools, events that used to be shown on the ESPN Local networks. What’s been featured in the news lately is the disagreement between Comcast and the BTN: the Big Ten wants it’s games aired on basic cable (so more people see them and the network gets more money), and Comcast wants to put it on a premium digital channel tier, so they don’t have to pay a loss to offer more channels with their basic package.

Every news report seems to show that neither side is budging, and the ones who will really lose out is fans. I even contacted my cable provider, Milliennium Digital Media, to find out where they stood:

Thank you for contacting Millennium Digital Media regarding
The Big Ten Network ,
Yes, we are considering the addition of the channel to our lineup.
At this time, they are asking for a lot of money for that one channel.
The amount they are asking for would make it one of the most expensive
channels on our lineup.
We would like to see them make the channel available to us on an
optional basis or for us to place it on our sports tier, so that
customers would have a choice to subscribe to it. However, at this time,
they are demanding carriage on our expanded basic service, forcing
everyone to pay for it.
They are only going to carry some of the lesser games, like MSU vs.
Appalachian State or MSU vs. Bowling Green. These were the types of
games that were available for free last year on WLAJ or WLNS TV in the
Lansing TV market.
ABC/ESPN still has the rights to telecast 41 of the first 47 football
games selected each year from 2007 and continuing for the next 10 years.

ABC network will have the top picks each week, after which ESPN and ESPN
2 will televise 18 of the next 24 Big 10 games selected.
ABC and ESPN will also feature the Big 10 on Saturday nights with 6
marquee games in primetime annually.
Here are some of the games we know we will carry in the coming season:
9/1 UAB @ MSU on ESPN
9/8 Oregon @ Michigan on ABC
9/15 Pittsburg @ MSU on ESPN
10/20 MSU @ Ohio State on ABC
10/20 Michigan @ Illinois on ABC or ESPN or ESPN 2
Thank you for contacting Millennium Digital Media, if you should have
any other questions, do not hesitate to contact us at 1-800-444-6997 our
office hours are 8:30am - 10:00pm Mon - Fri and Sat from 9:00am -
8:00pm. Eastern Standard Time.

Well, they don’t make it sound so bad, right? Who really cares about Bowling Green? Of course, MDM doesn’t mention (but the LSJ does) that the BTN also will exclusively air MSU’s homecoming game vs Indiana. What the heck??

Of course, this is only football season . What happens when basketball rolls around?  It’s good to see that everyone involved has the fan’s best interest in mind.  The only guaranteed way to see everything is to go with satellite, and that’s not an option.  What was wrong with the way things worked before?