Has the BTN taken the luster off the Big Ten??

I do think the BTN plays a small role in the perception of the conference, but not in the way the OP is arguing.  The money BTN has generated for the conference has been a source of jealousy by fans of other conferences.  Also, conference fans bragging about academics does not set too well with some fans from other conferences, and let's face it, Penn St. and Nebraska are well recognized names, but they haven't exactly helped the conference's image.  Add to it that Michigan has been down and OSU is perceived by many fans as an SEC lite school in the way they've behaved, and there's not a whole lot left to brag about.

 The B1G putting out an inferior product has taken the luster off the big ten, It has nothing to do with the BTN.

It has dramatically cheapened the production value of a lot of Big Ten games (Minny v. Wisco being a big example, as you mentioned. MSU vs. UMich last year would be another great example), and I feel like it robs a lot of the emotion out of the game for the viewer. Maybe it does play into why Kentucky is seen as a better landing spot than the Big Ten by recruits.  

Big Ten teams havent hired good football coaches. See the Pac 12, theyve done in football what Big Ten did in basketball.

I don't know why I continually feel the need to defend the Big 10 against this gigantic groupthink that you all and 95% of college football viewers have.

I guess I'm just wondering why teams in other leagues can get spanked by middle tier teams (of which the MAC is clearly the best) and lose to FCS schools and have down games and have terrible defense and still be seen as big boy football. Is it because they look good while being embarrassed on TV? Maybe the OP has a point then. Or is it sort of tied to the preseason poll condition where we get some preconceived notion of how good a team is before the year starts and compare wins and losses transitively immediately afterwards?

I think a good example is Washington last year which upset I think it was USC at home when USC was ranked #1 in the polls. We know now that USC was garbage, but back then everyone was thinking.. Hell, Washington must just be that good. Well, they're not that good this year, at any rate. Playing Tim-Beckmann-coached Illinois at a neutral site and playing toe-to-toe for most of the game is quite frankly bad. The #4 team from that league is a little better than the #10 team from our league.

People always say that the Big 10 needs to prove it in bowl games - stop losing bowls. Well, in the recent past, that's what been happening, slowly, but surely. There were some down years, but now that's coming to an end.

With the top programs having stable coaching staffs (finally!) we can expect to see Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, MSU, and Northwestern steadily improve. Minnesota and Iowa are slowly showing signs of life along with Indiana. Already it is obvious that the league is far better than last year where several teams were clearly inept. As an aside, imagine last year's bowl line up with Ohio State and Penn State eligible. With Ohio State in the MNC against ND, the big 10 could have been reigning champs!

Now that only Penn State is headed for the deep end, I feel like the next 2-3 years will see a resurgence. In fact, if Ohio is in fact that good and they go undefeated and Alabama loses once, there could very well be a national championship for the big 10 this year! All in all, everyone is severely underestimating this conference. It's gonna be tough because more than half the league is spread n' shred and we're not so good against that. Lots of good teams here.

Now we are blaming a TV network for the decline of Big Ten Football?

The Big Ten is down because:

Michigan has been wandering in the wilderness since 2006.  Hoke is just now getting our act back together.

Ohio State had to fire their coach amid scandal.and NCAA violations

Penn State had Paterno playing out the string and then had to fire basically their entire football staff in one of the worst scadals in college football history and are under huge NCAA penalties.

Wisconsin's coach just left for Arkansas

Iowa's coach (Ferentz) has been playing out the string for several years now and needs to retire

Nebraska's coach is being forced to apologize for telling his entire fanbase to go f*** themselves.

Minnesota's coach can't seem to go more than a few games without having a seizure on the sidelines.

Do I need to go on?  The conference is down because a lot of bad crap has gone on on at the football programs.   Hopefully an up-cycle will be coming soon. 

Beilema jumped to Ark. Guys like jerry Kill, Brewster... may be good coaches, but are MAC guys.

Urban is the obvious exception, but even Hoke came from SDSU. Do you think Texas or USC will hire a guy from a MAC or WAC school? Will Fitzgerald be scooped up by another conference?

Kirk Ferenz is considered a solid coach in our conference and that's the problem.

Keep in mind I excluded Rr for obvious reasons.

When Rutgers and Maryland get here.

Seriously, they look like they could be teams #7 and 8 right now

I am curious what others have to say. I grew up in the 80's when each Big Ten team was allowed two (IIRC) televised games per season. I am not sure when this changed (i.e. relation to launch of BTN) but as a fan things are better today.

I do agree the non- "marquee" match ups do seem marginalized today. It could simply boil down to choice: today there are so many live college football games televised, the Wisky-Minny match ups don't necessarily rise to the top.

Probably a tall order to pin this on the BTN, which is wildly successful (though I do agree -- can seem like amateur hour).

I find the production angle interesting. Certainly there is something to be said for over-exposure, but doesn't that presume that the product has always been inferior, but was considered high profile due to under exposure? I'm not convinced. Anyway, re: production, one specific thing I noticed is the camera angles tend to be shallower for a lot of SEC games. That is, the view originates closer to the plane that the game is being played on, which creates a dynamic effect (think how often highlights and replays are from a field-level POV). I first noticed this when watching A Train dismantle Auburn way back when, and thought, "This is kind of nice, having the lower angle." And also have noticed it often while watching SEC games, on CBS in particulae. Maybe there really is no pattern or correlation here, BUT.... If there is a trend of broadcasting B1G games from a higher POV, then that would not help the teams win "the eyeball test" -- which is important, as "the eyeball test" was the sole reason Alabama got their rematch vs LSU in the NC a few years ago. Obviously, the B1G still has to win gamesssss but the perception of the conference is what opens the door for those opportunities. So, is the camera angle a real trend, or imagined? Is it a byproduct of stadium design? Or is it intentional on the part of the broadcasters, to create a more dynamic-looking product? Thoughts?

As others have pointed out, it is that the B1G has been down for so long, not the BTN. The BTN is just taking the games that were on PASS 15 years ago and putting them in a more lucrative place for the member schools.

As for the conference, I think the reduction in talent coming from the south, losing OOC and bowl games, and the lack of top coaching has hurt each school's overall talent level and perception, especially when the conference's only BCS title was over 10 years ago.

Idk about that... The PAC is just as down as the B1G is... They have the Oregons and Stanford's like the ohio's and Michigan's... Then who? Washington? ASU? We have Nebraska and Wisconsin to combat those two. Iowa, msu, PennState, and Indiana are just as good as Arizona, UCLA, usc, and Wash St.
Then we have Purdue and Minny to their Cal and Oregon St.; am I missing something?

I think the fact that the Big Ten teams play up a level in the bowl games hurts the conference. At the end of the day the bigger bowl wins are most important (BCS right now and playoff in the future) but it can't help that the teams play higher seeded teams from other conferences.

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

No, that's ridiculous. Lower Pac12 games are on the Pac12 network which has even less distribution than the BTN

...You mean by showing B1G football?

I think the bigger issue is that over that same period, the "elite" programs in the B1G have typically failed to live up to their potential.  Also, OSU and PSU have experienced rather public transgressions.

What is this argument about the bowl games?

Is the BCS taking a lower B1G team and putting them against the top of other conferences? Look at just those win percentages. B1G isn't even .500 while the SEC is at .680 and the Pac is at .650. Even the Big East is at .533.

Oh maybe you mean the other bowls.

Gator is SEC 6 vs B1G 4

Capital 1 is B1G 2 vs SEC 2

Outback is B1G 3 vs SEC 4

Considering the SEC tends to place 2 in the BCS bowls of late (Sugar and Championshpi) add one to each of the SEC teams to see who is actually going.

Outside of playing MAC or Conf USA there is a matchup with the Big 12 in the Buffalo Wild Wings bowl where is it B1G 5 vs Big12 4.

Losing in bowl games is not a matter of LSU beating up Indiana.

 

The argument of weather makes a bit more sense because we know teams can't practice indoors or go to the host city the week before and get used to the weather.