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Conference realignment all traces back to one infamous meeting between ESPN and the Big Ten in 2004.

slyker

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Feb 2, 2002
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https://awfulannouncing.com/ncaa/consider-them-rolled-jim-delany-espn-big-ten-network.html

“Consider them rolled”—A look back at the Big Ten-ESPN meeting that changed sports media and college football forever -Conference realignment and the rise of new sports networks all trace back to one infamous meeting between ESPN and the Big Ten in 2004


Interesting Article..... Writers theory that if ESPN hadn't lowballed Delaney & the Big Ten , the outcome of this 2004 meeting might have been different and.... conference expansion, and RU to the BIG, never would have happened.
 
https://awfulannouncing.com/ncaa/consider-them-rolled-jim-delany-espn-big-ten-network.html

“Consider them rolled”—A look back at the Big Ten-ESPN meeting that changed sports media and college football forever -Conference realignment and the rise of new sports networks all trace back to one infamous meeting between ESPN and the Big Ten in 2004


Interesting Article..... Writers theory that if ESPN hadn't lowballed Delaney & the Big Ten , the outcome of this 2004 meeting might have been different and.... conference expansion, and RU to the BIG, never would have happened.
That was a great read.
 
Gotta stretch before patting myself on the back for commenting here BEFORE BTN was announced that this was exactly what the Big East should have done. Big East football had been getting the worst contracts from ESPN and worst handling by a "business partner".. which was proven when ESPN guided the ACC to pick apart Big East football... the tech was there.. the cablecos were consolidating.. the Big East could have been the first to do this.

How glad I am that Rutgers is in this conference and that Delany made it happen despite ESPN's "helpful advice" to a business partner.

BTW.. I am looking at Disney corporate moves.. short-sighted money-grubbing moves squeezing their customers for every last buck they can... and I cannot help but think this corporate malaise will spread.. or has.. to ESPN and they will crater.
 
Gotta stretch before patting myself on the back for commenting here BEFORE BTN was announced that this was exactly what the Big East should have done. Big East football had been getting the worst contracts from ESPN and worst handling by a "business partner".. which was proven when ESPN guided the ACC to pick apart Big East football... the tech was there.. the cablecos were consolidating.. the Big East could have been the first to do this.

How glad I am that Rutgers is in this conference and that Delany made it happen despite ESPN's "helpful advice" to a business partner.
Maybe Tranghese could have done the network — maybe not. He got all the schools out of their small gums and onto TV in the 80s. But a network was probably beyond the capabilities of the football side of the conference.
 
Maybe Tranghese could have done the network — maybe not. He got all the schools out of their small gums and onto TV in the 80s. But a network was probably beyond the capabilities of the football side of the conference.
Ha! Tranghese could not have... we should have booted him and gotten someone who COULD do it. But that would have meant tilting the power in the conference to football s schools.. because we would have needed more... and football guys would have run the network... football would come first. And teh Providence mob could not allow any of that.

Hey.. I wonder it, ultimately, that is the ACC's problem. Basketball rules the roost.
 
Gotta stretch before patting myself on the back for commenting here BEFORE BTN was announced that this was exactly what the Big East should have done. Big East football had been getting the worst contracts from ESPN and worst handling by a "business partner".. which was proven when ESPN guided the ACC to pick apart Big East football... the tech was there.. the cablecos were consolidating.. the Big East could have been the first to do this.

How glad I am that Rutgers is in this conference and that Delany made it happen despite ESPN's "helpful advice" to a business partner.

BTW.. I am looking at Disney corporate moves.. short-sighted money-grubbing moves squeezing their customers for every last buck they can... and I cannot help but think this corporate malaise will spread.. or has.. to ESPN and they will crater.
Good thought, but I don’t think the Big East had the clout to pull it off. Only the B1G or the SEC could have gotten cable cos to carry the network. And as it was that was tough sledding for BTN for a couple or few years. And partnering with Fox did get DirecTV on board , which was a key part of this.
 
https://awfulannouncing.com/ncaa/consider-them-rolled-jim-delany-espn-big-ten-network.html

“Consider them rolled”—A look back at the Big Ten-ESPN meeting that changed sports media and college football forever -Conference realignment and the rise of new sports networks all trace back to one infamous meeting between ESPN and the Big Ten in 2004


Interesting Article..... Writers theory that if ESPN hadn't lowballed Delaney & the Big Ten , the outcome of this 2004 meeting might have been different and.... conference expansion, and RU to the BIG, never would have happened.
Good article, funny author never mentions the ACC raid in collusion with ESPN) that happened years before Delaney ever sat down at the table.
 
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Ha! Tranghese could not have... we should have booted him and gotten someone who COULD do it. But that would have meant tilting the power in the conference to football s schools.. because we would have needed more... and football guys would have run the network... football would come first. And teh Providence mob could not allow any of that.

Hey.. I wonder it, ultimately, that is the ACC's problem. Basketball rules the roost.
We didn't have the football inventory with only 8 schools. That's where it would have fallen flat. I don't think we could have expanded as the league had to recover and build from 2005 after the first raid.
 
I do have one small point to make with the author. His line near the end, "I asked Greenstein on how he views the fallout from the fateful day in Chicago in 2004" and his speculation as to whether any of the things we see today would've happened, etc.

My thoughts are .. yes - they would have. Even if it wasn't Delany and Shapiro, it's kinda' hard to argue what kind of significant impact technology has made to our consumption of media. Right now, we can stream games from a variety of services (as well as networks) to watch the games we want to watch and, in some cases, when we want to watch them. It worked for other forms of entertainment (thanks to Netflix and others), why not sports? Thus, the advance of technology made us think differently about our consumption of sports. Thus, even if Delany and Shapiro were not involved, someone - somewhere - would've eventually come up with the idea of casting games (either for one team, or for a whole conference of teams, etc.) to the consumer regardless of the traditional means. And, that would eventually have had the same impact.
 
We didn't have the football inventory with only 8 schools. That's where it would have fallen flat. I don't think we could have expanded as the league had to recover and build from 2005 after the first raid.
Would have been difficult... I hinted at that when I brought up the football vs basketball school power issue... that is, we would HAVE to have had more football schools.. as you point out.

Then again... we had a TV contract with ESPN with that "inventory". But the basketball inventory would have been substantial.

I think the Big East would have struggled to get cablecos to offer the channel.. but politicians representing the member schools' states might have been able to force the issue.. we would have also needed to leverage any corporate sponsorships of various member schools... have ad buys lined up for whatever cablecos agreed. Even the mighty Big Ten struggled with this early on... but partner FoxSports was probably the difference. Could we have attracted as powerful a partner?

It would not have been easy.. and like the Big Ten did in adding us... Maryland should have been approached, had we had this plan. I think the pain we all experienced with inferior contracts and poor support from out "broadcast partner" ESPN... proved it was worth the risk.
 
Didn’t realize Fox now owns 61% of the BTN. Wonder why the BIG sold that additional stake.
 
I do have one small point to make with the author. His line near the end, "I asked Greenstein on how he views the fallout from the fateful day in Chicago in 2004" and his speculation as to whether any of the things we see today would've happened, etc.

My thoughts are .. yes - they would have. Even if it wasn't Delany and Shapiro, it's kinda' hard to argue what kind of significant impact technology has made to our consumption of media. Right now, we can stream games from a variety of services (as well as networks) to watch the games we want to watch and, in some cases, when we want to watch them. It worked for other forms of entertainment (thanks to Netflix and others), why not sports? Thus, the advance of technology made us think differently about our consumption of sports. Thus, even if Delany and Shapiro were not involved, someone - somewhere - would've eventually come up with the idea of casting games (either for one team, or for a whole conference of teams, etc.) to the consumer regardless of the traditional means. And, that would eventually have had the same impact.
Agree with this. Maybe it would’ve been a slower process, who knows? But I think it would have moved in that direction.
 
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