Big Ten Network Coverage
I'm an ann arbor native who has lived in Austin for several years. One of the more exciting things to me about the Big Ten Network was being able to see more Michigan sports, especially any sport that isn't football.
But I have to say, the number of games is kind of underwhelming. What I most miss is heading down to Yost, so I looked to see what the schedule is for Ice Hockey. The network will be carrying a whopping 6 games this season for the entire conference! Michigan is in 2 of them, but come on. How is there less coverage of hockey compared to gymnastics or field hockey, etc?
The other thing that's annoying is I see that almost none of the games are being aired on TV at all the first half of the season, but a fair number will be the second half of the season. Most of them will be on local or regional TV.
2 games will be on BTN, I can get those. CSTV will have 3, I can get those.
3 games will be on Fox Sports Detroit, which I definitely can't get. 11 games will be on a Comcast local access channel. Why the hell can't they simulcast these onto BTN? I have 5 BTN overflow channels on my uVerse and I have never seen anything on one of them.
It seems to me that the schools need to get their TV contracts set up so that alternate channels can carry content if it isn't being aired in a certain area. So if FSN Detroit has a game, it should be on BTN as well and blacked out in the detroit region.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:06 PM ^
I think part of the problem may be that there's no Big Ten conference for hockey, and the BTN would need to make deals with the WCHA and CCHA. They might have trouble making a deal where they get only games featuring Big Ten teams. But I agree with you that they should be able to find a way to make it work, since it's not like the WCHA and CCHA have a lot of options for national TV coverage.
Another thing you might want to consider is signing up for DirecTV, Dish Network, or (if it's available in your area) AT&T U-Verse. With all those companies, no matter where you live you can subscribe to a sports pack that includes Fox Sports Detroit. They black out almost all the pro sports on those channels, but I strongly doubt that they would black out college hockey games. It's only three Michigan hockey games this year, but if you're into other regional college sports there may be enough games on it to make it worth your while.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:09 PM ^
October 7th, 2008 at 2:01 AM ^
October 7th, 2008 at 11:02 AM ^