The Big Ten announced today that it will launch its own network in 2007 that will broadcast its football and basketball games, as well as minor sports, on DirecTV. The conference says it is still working on ways to get around the fact that Northwestern, Purdue and Minnesota are all in the Big Ten.

            “We are fully aware that our entire conference is not just Ohio State, Michigan, and Wisconsin,” said Jim Delany. “If it was, we would be ecstatic and this new Big Ten Channel would be ratings gold. Unfortunately, we also are under obligation to show Northwestern, Purdue and Minnesota games. And Indiana football. And Penn State basketball. We tried to find a way around it, trust me we did, but those schools were against us keeping them off the air. Selfishly, I might add – because it’s in the best interests of the conference to keep our channel free of awful games. I guess we’ll see what happens, but sometimes I wonder if anyone will watch at all.”

            An added problem for the Big Ten Channel is that the ABC/ESPN family will remain the exclusive network for the conference’s premier events, such as the Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry and Illinois-Michigan State basketball games.

            “We’re giving away all of our best stuff to ABC and ESPN because they can give it the exposure it deserves,” says Delany. “And because they’d be insane to want to broadcast a Northwestern-Illinois football game. Heck, we don’t even want to broadcast a Northwestern-Illinois football game, but we have to fill our programming days somehow.”

            In order to keep ratings up and please prospective advertisers, Delany said the Big Ten Channel will most likely air “classic” proramming during primetime hours and during weekends, and push the unwatchable fare – such as Penn State basketball – to the middle of the night on tape delay.

            “During prime viewing hours we’ll probably be kind of like ESPN Classic for the Big Ten,” says Delany. “Old Michigan-Ohio State games, classic Fab Five games, stuff like that. That’ll lock in strong ratings. Then, if a few diehards want to get up at three in the morning to watch Illinois and Northwestern fumble back and forth to each other, well – hey, more power to them.”

            Big Ten officials are also considering the possibility of creating a second conference channel in which viewers could pay a monthly charge to have all Northwestern, Purdue and Minnesota games blacked out.

            “We want to cater to viewers however possible,” says Delany. “Lord knows that outside of these kids’ parents and girlfriends, no one wants to watch a lot of this crap.”