Friday, November 02, 2007

The Big Eleven government subsidy

The Big Ten Network is pushing the statehouse to force cable carriers to carry their network on a basic cable subscription as if state legislators have nothing better to do.

The Buckeye Institute has an analysis of the debate.

The BTN wants to charge local carriers $1.10 per subscriber for the service but they want the cable companies to eat that charge.

They charge non-midwest carriers $.10 for the network.

What gives?

First the BTN is horrible. It's football season, yet on a Saturday afternoon you can catch a compelling Indiana-Minnesota football match up at 12:00 and then, at 3:30 you'll be able to get a great Northwestern-Michigan St. field hockey game.

During the week, you can catch compelling reruns of games and analysis by retired coaches and players who are barely literate.

This weekend's game of OSU and Wisconsin is an anomaly to the normal broadcast schedule.

My suggestion. Give it up Big Ten. The NFL network can't make their network go, how can you?

Let's go back and start with counting the number of teams in your league. Then let's work on getting more than three national championships in the past forty years. After you accomplish those things, we'll talk.

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