Big Ten Network Ramps Up PR Machine To Turn Fans Into Astroturf

We warned you about the Big Ten Network's push to have all cable customers pay $1.10 more each month. We said: "This is going to get ugly."

In the run-up to the football season this month, be prepared for the big media campaign. Today Jim Delaney himself will be in Madison along with an entourage from Fox Sports' Big Ten Network, trying to convince the Wisconsin State Journal, the Capital Times, and whoever else will listen that somehow, their product doesn't belong on a voluntary "premium" sports tier, but rather on the bill of every cable subscriber in every state that has a Big Ten school.

So far Charter and Time Warner, Wisconsin's major campanies, have not caved. But next we will see the type of expensive newspaper, tv, and radio campaign that tries to turn fans and alumni into advocates for a particular business or industry. In this case, it's Rupert Murdock's Big Ten Network. Sound familiar?  Funny, but if you read far enough in Don Walker's June story about this fight in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, you find this:

The possible loss of The Citadel game also has gotten the attention of TV4US, a group that promotes competition in the cable business.

"September Saturdays without Badger football are like the Fourth of July without fireworks," said Thad Nation, the director of the group. "But as long as the cable companies maintain their monopoly on service, Wisconsin sports fans are out of luck."

It's not very surprising to find TV4US' Nation on Jim Delaney's side. The Fox people should hire him, or at least use his work on behalf of AT&T as a lesson in the manufacture of astroturf.

WaxingAmerica's plea to the good folks at Wisconsin's newspapers and tv stations: when you get the Big Ten Network's pitch this week for favorable coverage and editorial comment, please try to overlook the hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars these guys will spend in the next month.  What's good for the UW Athletic Department and the News Corporation is not always good for Wisconsin and its video consumers.

A word to UW fans (and Michigan and Illinois and Iowa and Indiana and Ohio State and Penn State fans, too): Don't get suckered into thinking that loyalty to your team and school means you continually have to lay out more and more money to watch the same number of games.  What?  Oh, you're used to that.  Well, then please just don't force the rest of us to pay for all those games we don't watch.

- Barry Orton

Comments

[Tim Morrissey]

Bielema was on the Brewers broadcast last night, with one of those annoying "interview during the action because it's a celebrity" things, encouraging all "good Badger fans" to call their cable operator and tell them how much you want the Big Ten Network.

Bend over, Barry......here it comes....

/tjm

[Dave]

Are you kidding? The cable companies have a real astroturf campaign:

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2007/08/20/comcast-posing-as-big-ten-fans-in-anti-btn-astroturfing-campaign/

Barry, you are wrong. Yeah, Comcast and Charter are really "putting fans first" by tying desirable networks (ESPN, BTN, ESPN News, etc.) to garbage that nobody wants (HGTV, Travel Channel, E!, etc.). The cable companies don't have to raise prices by $1.10; they could simply drop a pointless network from the basic tier (say, "The History Channel") to balance to costs. In a perfect world, we would have a la carte cable, where each network had to stand on its own two feet to survive, instead of receiveing cable-company welfare in the form of cross-subsidizing tying arrangement. While we don't live in a perfect world, I'm sick of subsidizing "Oxygen," the two Spanish language networks, Headline News, "FitTv," all of the Discovery Networks, and "the Golf Channel." I have no problem forcing fans of those mindless networks to pay for my Big Ten Football.

[mel]

What people don’t understand is TW wants to include BNT in a seperate sports package not on basic cable so thay can charge even more $$$.Who's seeing dollar signs here????They sren't thinking of their customers -they're thinking of more money for an expensive sports package. If everyone is so worried about paying for a channel they don’t ever watch what about the home shopping network and various other channels that just right down suck.We pay for them! BTN wanted to be a basic channel so anyone could watch if they wanted .
TW is the one wanting to make money here by putting BNT in a seperate sports package and make $$$$ off of it.
Watching the buckeyes is a family tradition for buckeye fans and I agree with Nathan —I think it’s rediculous people like this have to drag their family to a bar just to watch the game .

[Lee Tikalsky]

I think that the big ten and nfl network should be included on the basic
package. There are some other that I could do without, but i want the big ten and nfl channels. For my part you could drop the E channel or something like that.