Could They Be Sending a Message?

This evening I had the joy of watching the Indiana University men’s basketball team handily defeat Purdue by a score of 85-58. Unfortunately many individuals in the Bloomington and Indianapolis area were not able to see the game on their televisions. The game was carried by ESPNU, a cable network not currently carried in basic cable packages in these areas. In the past this game, as well as other IU basketball games, have been carried in Bloomington on ESPN Plus and aired on the local WB (now CW) affiliate.

I began to wonder why ESPN would not this game between two big rivals available to a wider audience. I can understand that they would like to build ESPNU’s audience, but why do so at the expense of many fans?

Then a friend tonight asked me about the Big Ten Network, which is set to debut in August, 2007. Could the imminent start of this network, and the amount of Big Ten sporting events it will cover, be a reason why ESPN relegated this game to ESPNU?

I did some investigating of the Big Ten Network and discovered that the majority of the network is owned by the Big Ten Conference itself with a minority of the network owned by the Fox Cable Networks. The Big Ten Network will not carry just football and basketball. It will also carry the championship events, classic Big Ten sporting events, coaches’ shows, Olympics events, and academic programming.

I read in the FAQ section for the Big Ten Network how games that will be aired will be chosen. It appears that ABC gets first selection of Saturday afternoon games, CBS gets first selection of weekend men’s basketball games, ESPN has first selection of weekday men’s basketball games, and ESPN on most weekends has second and third selection of football games. The change occurs with the football and men’s basketball games not selected during this process. In the past these games could be picked up by ESPN’s syndication outlet (known as ESPN Regional Television or ESPN Plus). This is why a game such as Indiana vs. Purdue would have appeared on a local station. Now these games will appear on the Big Ten Network.

Did ESPN put this game on ESPNU to bolster this new network’s ratings? Or did they do this to send a message to the impending Big Ten Network, due to their partnership with Fox Sports?