Comcast and the Big 10 are finally calling a truce? Hallelujah!

From all accounts, the Big 10 and Comcast are on the verge of kissing, making up and getting into bed together. In other words, the Big 10 Network may finally show up on Comcast expanded basic within the "Big 10 footprint."

All I can say is "ABOUT FUCKING TIME YOU GOD DAMN MONEY GRUBBING DIMWITS!"

Considering it's taken over 8 months for the opposing parties to get to the point where they are near an agreement, I'd expect it'll take another month or 3 to get the i's dotted and the t's crossed. I doubt it will be in time for most fans to watch the early rounds of the Big 10 hoops tournament, unfortunately. No Wolverines or Spartans for yours truly, unless they advance.

That the 1st round tournament games are on the Big 10 Network, rather than on the 4 Letter, which had been the practice since the tourney began, is screwing we fans over...Again. I'm getting used to being bent over, not that I like it...

The news of détente having been reached between the Big 10 and Comcast is all well and good, save for one thing. I'm in a Charter Communications market. Well, fuck me.

I can only hope once Comcast, the lumbering, money first, customers last, big bully of the Michigan cable providers falls into line, that the smaller ones (Charter, Time Warner) fall like so many dominoes.

It can't happen soon enough for my tastes. Not that any of the cable companies asked, or even care about the fans. Which is why I pay entirely too much for my cable package, have 3 useless shopping and 2 even more useless religious channels on my basic cable lineup, while I have to pay extra for ESPN Classic and the NHL Network, with neither the NFL or Big 10 Networks even available to me.

Fuck big cable! Fuck 'em high and hard!

I know writing that makes not a whit of difference, but at least I feel a little better.

College football season is here! Time to watch the Wolverines kick some Appalachian ass...What?

Oh, I can't see the Big 10 game I want to watch? You're kidding me, right? No shit? Not even on the WWLiS's Gameplan? Only on the Big 10 Network, which I'm more than willing to pay for, but I can't get? I'm stuck listening to lame ass Michigan mouthpieces Frank Beckmann and Jim Brandstatter on the radio? My only home TV option to watch Sparty on the deuce? Sparty?

Well... Fuck me...

That's how I'm feeling as we go into the first weekend of the college football season.

For the past few decades, on a normal college football Saturday, you'd find me in front of the tube at noon sharp. Beer and munchies in hand, I'd flip to one of the wolrldwide leader's channels, and tune in the Michigan Wolverines.

This season, I'm one of the of fans caught in a pissing match between mega conglomerates. The Big 10, the most pretentious and heavy handed group of schools in the nation, has drawn a line in the sand with their Big 10 Network. The cable companies, whom I despise, yet am forced to deal with as I have no other option, refuse to cross it.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Big 10 fans, are caught in a war of money, words, and power, unable to watch our favorite teams.


I've let Charter (My cable provider) know that I would very much like them to carry the B10N. all I've heard in return is bullshit mumbo jumbo, saying that it's being "Considered."

When it comes down to it, it's all about the money. In regard to the B10N pricing, this is what a Comcast rep had to say in today's Ann Arbor News...

"We don't feel that every customer should be burdened with a $1.10 month charge. There are a lot of customers that don't want to pay $13 a year."

Mr. Cable Mouthpiece says they have customers that don't want to pay for the B10N. That's all well and good. But guess what? I don't want to pay for 3 shopping networks, Court TV, the Hallmark Channel, Fit TV, the totally superfluous TV Guide Network, and countless other channels that I NEVER watch, and will NEVER have an interest in watching. Yet I have no choice in having to pay for those channels if I want to see networks I enjoy, like ESPN, FSN, FX, TNT, and Comedy Central.

You can't tell me that the B10N doesn't has as much, if not more, viewership potential than Fit fucking TV, or the "Why do I need a channel for TV listings when I have a built in on screen guide?" TV Guide Channel.

The cable conglomerates are totally talking out of both sides of their mouths on this argument. They claim they are doing us a favor by refusing to charge viewers extra for channels they don't watch (Like the B10N), but they have already been doing so to viewers for decades! (See any niche network you have programmed out of your favorites button, like Fit TV)

Not that I'm letting the holier-than-thou Big 10 off the hook. As much as they deny it, you know part of their not well thought out plan to gain basic cable traction in the Big 10 "Footprint" with the cable cartel was to have the Big 10 fanbase do the dirty work for them.

The bitching and moaning about our inability to watch the Wolverines/Buckeyes/Nittany Lions/Your favorite team would hopefully cause a consumer backlash, one with so much vitriol, that the cable monoliths would have no choice but to capitulate to the Big 10's wishes.

There's one small flaw in the Big 10's nefarious plan to become the biggest, baddest, most influential college conference in the land. They forgot that the cable companies have government awarded monopolies, and they couldn't honestly give 2 shits about their customers, and what their customers might like to watch.

You just need to spend 5 minutes on the phone with them to figure that out...

I'm willing to pay for it, so just give me my God damn Big 10 Network! Enough with the posturing, the press releases, the arguing back in forth in the media, as I have no sympathy for either side. Both are wrong, both are stubborn, both have more money than they know what to do with, and both are screwing over the people that give them all that money in the first place.

A pox on both their houses...

That's not the only cable incompetence I've had to deal with recently. This week, Charter threw we sports fans a bone, and added ESPNU! As Chris Farley would say, "Whoop-de-freakin'-do!"

ESPNU is just another network I'll rarely watch, though I'm paying through the nose for it. But I'll give them credit, it is a sports channel, and it has some live programming worth tuning in to see. It ain't the B10N, but it's a start.

As I investigated my new lineup, there was a surprise. Charter had bumped ESPN Classic off of basic. But where in the Hell is it? You'll never guess where I found it...

I do pay for an admittedly lame digital sports tier. You'd think that ESPN Classic, being a SPORTS NETWORK, would be moved to that sports tier. Nope, it was moved to a tier with likes of Woman's Entertainment, BET Jazz, and the Reelz Channel? What the fuck is the Reelz Channell? I'm already paying Charter WELL over a $100 a month, and they expect me to pay for that crap on top of it? Please.

Once again, the sports fans gets bent over by the cable company the Big 10 large, money grubbing, corporate asses.

Waiting for the Big Ten Network? Don't hold your breath

The Big Ten Network: Only available in markets with a population of less than 5,000!

I saw a short blurb about the "Big Ten Network" in today's Freep, which read like a cut and paste job from a Big 10 press release. One line caught my eye...

"The network also announced verbal commitments with 75 cable providers -- up from the 40-50 it discussed last week."

That was good to read. Finally, we may get news if we'll actually get to see football in the fall. Up to this point, I'd heard bubkus from the Big 10 as to what cable companies would carry the B10N.

So, in looking for more info, I found the B10N's website, and started to poke around for broadcast information. What I found wasn't very encouraging to the vast majority of Big 10 fans.

Some of the local systems planning to carry Big Ten Network as part of their expanded basic level of service include Altatec Alta Municipal Utility, Cedar Falls Utilities, Celect Communications, Consolidated Communications Network Services, City of Wadsworth Cable TV, Dixon Telephone Company, Grundy Center Municipal, Harlan Municipal Utilities, Hiawatha Broadband, Horizon Telecom, Independence Communications, Iowa Network Services, Mid-Century Communications, Moultrie Telecommunications, Muscatine Power & Water, Oneida Cablevision, Spencer Municipal Utilities, The Community Agency and USA Communications. In addition, Big Ten Network has national distribution agreements with DirectTV and the new AT&T U-verseSM service, as well as a major regional agreement with Buckeye Cable.

This was dated 07/02/07. Do you see any of the big carriers listed, the cable companies that odds are 95% of us use? (Not as if most of us have much choice as to our cable) Where's Comcast? Charter? (Note: I'm stuck with Charter) WOW? Bright House? Looks as if Dish Network satellite subscribers are shut out as well. I see only 1 decent sized cable system, Buckeye Cable. Other than that, nothing but tiny carriers, that when combined, wouldn't add up to 1 of the big boys in cable.

So who in the Midwest is going to actually see the B10N? You're in luck if your cable TV is supplied by a small municipality, or you have DirecTv. Other than that, it's looking more and more like you're shit out of luck.

Personally, I don't care if the B10N is in the basic package, or as the B10N so cryptically puts it, "Expanded basic." I just want the damn thing to be available to me. I already pay for a Charter sports tier, lame ass as it may be. How lame ass? ESPN News, the Outdoor Channel, something called Fuel, and 3 FOX college sports regionals, Atlantic, Central, and Pacific. (I got it strictly for ESPN News. I rarely, if ever, watch the rest)

But add the B10N to that tier, and it immediately becomes much less lame.

I'm willing to pay for the B10N. I think most fans of the Big 10 would be willing to pay for a sports tier to get it. So why is Jim Delaney and the Big 10 playing hardball? Why get into a pissing match they can't possibly win?

Obviously Delaney likes throwing his weight around. Such as his demanding that Comcast apologize for calling some B10N events, "Second tier."

"Comcast recently has characterized events that will be on the Big Ten Network as 'second and third tier.' I believe Comcast owes every Big Ten university an apology. The comments are an insult to Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin: To the universities, their students, their fans and alumni and their communities. There are no second-rate contests in the Big Ten."

Please, get off your high horse. Christ almighty, a football game between Indiana and Northwestern could rightfully be called "Second tier."

From what little I've watched of the Fox regionals on my Charter sports tier, it's chock full of those "Second tier" events. The majority of the FOX sports college schedule, which I'm sure is very similar to the B10N offerings, is mostly comprised of non-revenue sports that, to be honest, I'm not going to watch. I'm not going to watch Big 10 sports like volleyball, soccer, wrestling and swimming.

The Big 10: "We're better than the SEC, because Jim Delaney says so."

As for myself, and I'd venture to say 99% of all Big 10 fans, we're going to watch football and basketball, and maybe a little hockey and baseball thrown in. Other than the 2 revenue producing sports, football and basketball, the rest can be truthfully considered, "Second tier."

No offense to those who participate in those non-revenue sports, but it's true. They are carried on the backs of the cash cows that are football and basketball, and it's those 2 sports that will get fans to pay for the B10N.

All I ask is that Delaney, and the Big 10, give up their high and mighty posturing. You aren't the Ivy League west. You aren't nearly as academically driven. You are what you are, a big time sports powerhouse, driven by football and basketball, lucky enough to haver some of the biggest TV markets that care about college sports within your boundaries. The Big 10 just like the SEC, ACC, Pac 10, Big East, and Big 12, but with a bigger TV presence. You are deluding yourselves otherwise.

So get your heads out of the clouds, come back down to earth, and get deals done with the cable companies that most Big 10 fans have no choice but to use.