Has the BTN taken the luster off the Big Ten??
It's been 6 years since the Big Ten Network first started broadcasting and I feel that is a long enough sample size to look at the long term results. Whether the evidence in connected or not there is no doubting that since the 2007 season that the B1G has fallen well below the SEC, PAC-12, and ACC conferences.
Is it a coincidence? Or has the limited market of the BTN affected the national perception of the conference? To me, almost all BTN televised games have the feeling of it being amateur hour. Whereas I've never had that feeling watching a couple of middling ACC teams go at it.
It just seems like those old school bruiser games like Wisconsin vs Minnesota have been marginalized. They used to be top tier Big Ten matchups but are now relegated to filler between nacho dip commercials
Don't get me wrong, the proof is in the pudding. The B1G still has to beat top opponents. But I can't help to think that the BTN's constant coverage and commercialization has hurt more than it has helped as opposed to schools that always have ESPN airing their games.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:23 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:34 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:48 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 1:09 AM ^
I think he means that the media and recruiting sites are pushing talent to the SEC schools, not that they are biased in their rankings.
When all you hear about year in and year out is SEC SEC SEC on ESPN it has an effect on recruiting. The SEC hasn't done shit it's been Alabama, LSU, Florida and (until recently) Auburn doing the heavy-lifting. The conference bias at ESPN is getting ridiculous.
October 5th, 2013 at 1:30 AM ^
I don't know. ESPN has always been kind to Michigan and Ohio State and still is. ESPN mostly controlls the game times now and we're more than getting our fair share of prime time games. I think we will see a bias in the future towads the ACC though. You just listed off 4 differenct SEC team national champions over the last 7 years. You would have to go back to 1966 to get to the 3rd team that last won a national championship in the big ten.
October 5th, 2013 at 1:35 AM ^
This sentiment makes no sense to me. I don't see why "they have crappy teams too" is somehow a trump card to "they've drubbed the field in national championship games in the BCS era"
October 5th, 2013 at 8:46 AM ^
"The SEC hasn't done shit it's been Alabama, LSU, Florida and (until recently) Auburn doing the heavy-lifting."
Do you not see the humor in your above statement? What four teams in the B1G have done the heavy-lifting in the last decade? You'd be lucky to count to 2. Short of OSU and Wisky ( 3 straight Rose Bowl appearances), no other teams have really done anything to help bolster the B1G's reputation.
October 5th, 2013 at 9:57 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 9:38 AM ^
winning eight National Titles in a decade? We're pretty fortunate to get one a decade, and it's been Michigan or Ohio State. Our league champion is known for going to the Rose Bowl and losing, while the SEC's champion goes to the Title game and wins, save LSU in the rematch against fellow SEC member Alabama. By playing in a conference, it's going to be impossible to have every team with 10+ wins, some have to lose for others to do so, it's the nature of a conference, and the SEC does not get a pass on this. Until our conference teams can play better in the big name OOC games (thinking Nebraska and Wisconsin), play better agains mid-level opponents (Michigan, Penn State, Purdue, and others), and start pulling in bowl wins against big-name teams and National Titles, the perception will remain, and deservedly.
October 5th, 2013 at 1:09 AM ^
Did you know that before the Big Ten Network SEC fans claimed ESPN had a Big Ten bias? Put aside the "those fans are crazy" dismissals because I don't think anyone feels that way now.
ESPN is the evil empire of sports media. They are entitled and are known to play games with people. Delaney poked the big bad bear with this network idea (especially since he partnered with Fox) and coverage of the conference has been less favorable since. The link is pretty clear to the naked eye.
Meanwhile, it could not have been better for the SEC's relations with the World Wide Ledaer.
October 5th, 2013 at 8:55 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:25 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:30 AM ^
and if Minnesota-Iowa isn't on the BTN, it's probably only on espn3 or something. The conference's ineptitude has nothing to do with the BTN and everything to do with sub-par talent and mediocre coaches
October 5th, 2013 at 8:10 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:31 AM ^
I guess what I'm saying is that my conclusion is that the BTN has turned the B1G from a national power to a regional, mid-west super power. Great for some schools/sports but not so great for some others. And it really effects Michigan and the perception of B1G football.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:40 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:54 AM ^
Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe it isn't but you cannot say that the nation-wide perception ("nation-wide" implies the people who live outside of the state of Michigan) has not drastically changed as far as what the B1G has been considered as far as a dominant conferece, like it once was.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:56 AM ^
It's because in the past few years Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, and Penn State have all taken turns being awful and/or embarassing themselves. That's why the B1G is perceived as it is. Even Ohio State is viewed as a paper tiger in most years
October 5th, 2013 at 8:13 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 8:38 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 8:27 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 9:06 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:45 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 1:14 AM ^
I don't think it's bad ADs as much as administrations who are stingy or just want the money placed elsewhere.
Do you really think most Big Ten ADs believe that the MAC is some mystical fountain that will produce the next great midwestern coach just because Bo and Woody came from there generations ago? Or is it attractive because the salaries aren't competitive and they can stay within the financial parameters set for them by the school?
But I agree that the Big Ten is its own worst enemy. You'd never know they were rolling in dough with how cheaply they do things.
October 5th, 2013 at 9:04 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:54 AM ^
Purdue won't magically become un-awful. The Big Ten has done it all to themselves. If anything, the network gets the conference vastly more TV time than we had before
October 5th, 2013 at 1:34 AM ^
Correlation is not causation.
October 5th, 2013 at 9:01 AM ^
I'm a complete loss to to figure that one out. OP, my take is that you came up with this idea off the top of your head and then did absolutely nothing to see if it actually made sense. How many fewer games are on ESPN now than before the BTN, for example?
October 5th, 2013 at 12:32 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:44 AM ^
it's only a few % points of . . . delustering?
The B1G (and perhaps a bit of media hype) is responsible for it's own poor reputation on the field of play.
I will second the above comment that the BTN isn't exactly doing the conference any image favors.
It does need to upgrade it's production values, announcers, etc. Hell even the sponsors could use some further improvement. We made Rotel Bowl jokes for a reason.
October 5th, 2013 at 7:20 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:33 AM ^
The truth is that if you look back to the post WWII era, relatively few NCs were claimed by B1G teams.
But I don't think the BTN has hurt the image of the conference. The BCS NC games have set the stage for marginalizing all of the conferences that go without an NC.
I also think that the BCS has had a negative effect on the college game, but that's another matter.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:40 AM ^
Let's not confuse the recent history of the B1G in football with the advent of the BTN. There is not a causal link to be found between the two. It is coincidence only, and it will change again.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:42 AM ^
has been the several-decades-long population shift from the upper midwest to the southern and western areas of the Sun Belt.
October 5th, 2013 at 1:07 AM ^
There is one primary reason why the Big Ten has fallen: there are fewer top tier football recruits in this footprint (due to population shifts, increased access to sports and increased recruiting exposure for southern athletes, etc). Period, end of story. The best players are in the southeast, Texas and California. That's really it.
You can argue about some other reasons (none of which is the Big Ten Network), that might add some small impact, but the pool of recruits is 95% of the reason.
OSU and MICH can work around that to some degree because they recruit nationally, but the depth will just never be there in the conference as a whole anymore.
It is what it is, but you take the good with the bad and even with the writing being on the wall for the longterm prosperity of the conference's football programs, at least you root for Michigan instead of schools where they think its funny to scream "fag" at theater majors and have a deeply ingrained history of overt racism.
October 5th, 2013 at 1:19 AM ^
The Big Ten hasn't fallen. You can read the post Rose Bowl articles from just about any major newspaper in the 1970's about how the Big Ten is a dinosaur league that can't compete with the athletes and the modern concepts of (mostly) the Pac-10.
Michigan has won half a national title since the late 1940's. OSU has won one national title since the late 1960's. The SEC has won how many in a row? Nobody is working around shit.
And acting like depth is an issue is ridiculous. The rest of the conference has done nothing but improve since the days of the Big 2 and the Little 8. Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Iowa in the mid 2000's have been as good as they've ever been in school history. The league still stinks.
October 5th, 2013 at 9:22 AM ^
You make good points. While UM, OSU, and ND have recruited nationally only ND really has backed it up in the past 4-5 decades with multiple national championships. One could argue UM has caused OSU to fail at this (happily) a few times in the Cooper era since undefeated teams went into the Game, only to be dispatched with 1 loss. But in the Midwest OSU and UM have not kept up their part of the bargain despite consistent top 10 recruiting classes almost yearly for decades. I have also been disappointed in Penn State since joining the Big 10 - I thought they'd be a perennial contender for the title (i.e. a legitimate chance to win it all 3 out of 5 years) but speaking of paper tigers.
In the 70s you had Oklahoma, Alabama, USC and Notre Dame winning big
Early 80s through early 90s was Miami, ND, and Penn State 2x (but before they joined the Big 10)
90s began the rise of the SEC big time, but also Nebraska (UM its one NC of late)
2000s heavy SEC with the OSU NC early in the decade, and USC.
In terms of national championships, the Big 10 is 5th the past 4 decades behind the SEC, Big 12 [8] (Oklahoma and Nebraska at the time...also one from Colorado), Pac 12 (USC with 1 from Washington), and "the independents (ND + PSU+ Miami* at the time)
*Miami was in the Big East in the early 90s.
To the general point of the OP - all the BTN has done is hide some of our very bad teams from networks that might be seen in other parts of the country. If anything the money the BTN generates should be helping.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:43 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:53 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 1:37 AM ^
This, so many times over.
If we're gonna talk about network coverage, then let's take a look at Network Coverage for the presently deepest conferences in football and basketball: the SEC and the B1G respectively.
Which TV station exclusively contracts certain SEC football games? CBS. Which TV station exclusively contracts certain B1G b-ball games? CBS.
Correlation is not causation, but the national level of exposure offered by CBS will work wonders for a conference. CBS, as far as I know, does not "black out" certain regions of the country like ESPN will do. ESPN and ABC will show different games in different regions at the same time. CBS shows one game to the whole country. CBS vs. BTN is even a greater discrepancy.
It does make a difference for exposure. It helps recruiting. It builds fans. It builds support and loyalty.
I'm taking this from an article on why the SEC is considered the best conference in football. It was not really a professional or scientific argument, but it made a lot of good points, and this was one. Exposure makes a difference.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:54 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 12:54 AM ^
The Big Ten has sucked compared to the other big conferences for 50+ years by any objective measure.
Letting America watch an awful battle for Paul Bunyan's axe is not going to make them all forget our record in bowl games.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:57 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 1:05 AM ^
BTN's abysmal production values can't do much for the perception of the league to outsider fans who see it. The operation is clearly done on the cheap.
October 5th, 2013 at 8:11 AM ^
October 5th, 2013 at 1:09 AM ^
All I know is it's going to be real weird to watch these BTN "Forever Big Ten" shows about athletes who played for Rutgers and Maryland, because you can forever be a part of a conference you never even played in.
BCC: Nebraska
October 5th, 2013 at 1:19 AM ^
Ndamukong Suh: Best defensive lineman in the league for the 2000s.
October 5th, 2013 at 1:21 AM ^
I can't even imagine which athletes those two powers have produced are considered worthy of retrospectives. Are we looking at, like, an hourlong Juan Dixon biography?
October 5th, 2013 at 1:35 AM ^
story.
October 5th, 2013 at 1:40 AM ^
Maryland has won a national championship in basketball more recently than any other school in the conference. AND IT HAPPENED MORE THAN A DECADE AGO!!! Unless you want to keep hearing about how fantabulous Mateen Cleaves was, "The Juan Dixon Story" sounds like a most pleasant programming change.