It’s the big finale for the big year for the Big Ten.
“This is our Super Bowl,” said Dave Revsine of the Big Ten tournament, which begins Thursday in Chicago.
It’s all been BIG, with a capital B-I-G for the the Big Ten Network. The network will televise two games Thursday afternoon and two more games Friday night.
It will be one last chance for Commissioner Jim Delany’s brainchild to haul in some more huge ratings. If anyone has cashed in on the conference’s big (there’s that word again) year in basketball, it is the BTN.
Ratings for games on the BTN from January through mid-March are up 27 percent; at .91 from .72 in the network’s top 8 metered markets, according network president Mark Silverman. Ratings for its signature show, The Journey, have increased 20 percent.
It all translates into the BTN having its best January and February ever.
Little wonderful why Silverman appears to be almost giddy. He notes in Detroit, there were nights where Michigan basketball on BTN did better ratings than the Redwings and Pistons.
“This is significant, huge,” Silverman said. “We have had 7 different teams in the top 15 at one point during the season. And the next level of games showed the depth of the conference. It’s not just Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State.”
However, there’s little question the revival of the sleeping giant in Indiana and strong run by the Wolverines have helped fuel this surge.
“You’re only as good as you’re marquee teams,” Revsine said.
It drove viewers to the BTN, which is what it is all about.
“If you look at where we were six years ago (the BTN started in 2007) to where we are now, it’s hard to believe,” Silverman said. “People now know if it’s Wednesday night, we’re going to have a doubleheader. They know where to find the Sunday night shows. They’re coming to us.”
As for the future, the next challenge will be for Silverman to get the BTN into the local markets of the conference’s two new schools, Maryland and Rutgers. It will be a huge endeavor, especially in the New York/New Jersey area where Cablevision and Time Warner are known to play hardball. Time Warner waited until last year to add the NFL Network.
Silverman said he hopes to have “proactive talks” with representatives in those areas within the next 6 to 12 months. Translated, he should be wearing full armor to deal with cable companies who are getting increasingly reluctant to raise subscriber fees to add more sports programming.
Then again, Silverman has been through this exercise before. The BTN encountered considerable resistance when it launched, especially from Comcast. Yet it prevailed and now is in 50 million homes.
The idea, Silverman said, is to continue to grow the network. That’s one of the reasons why it goes by the short version of BTN instead of the Big Ten Network. It wants to be viewed as more than just a regional network of a mostly Midwest-based conference.
“I watch a lot of ESPNU and the other networks that cover college sports,” Silverman said. “Our goal is to be the best network for college sports, not just the best conference sports network.”